serious centrist candidate Re: [EM] my letter to CVD

[Ernest Prabhakar]

Hi James,

Great stuff.  Overall I think both your analysis (of the issues) and 
your approach (of respectful engagement) is an excellent model of how 
to deal with IRV (and other controversial voting issues).

The only area of minor disagreement I had is that I felt you were 
slightly more pessimistic than necessary about Condorcet's utility in a 
general public election, due to the burying concern.  But that's a 
valid area of disagreement given the current state of research.

However, your article raised a more serious issue which I've been 
wondering about:

On Apr 4, 2004, at 8:48 AM, James Green-Armytage wrote:
> 	The 40%-45%-15% example you gave to illustrate Condorcet's flaw is
> implausible because in it there is no serious centrist candidate. In a
> real Condorcet election which people actually wanted to win, there 
> would
> most likely be more than one or two contenders for the centrist 
> position.
> We wouldn't see two well-expressed wing candidates and a lone, skulking
> stealth candidate; we would see several candidates seeking the 
> political
> center. And here I'm not talking about the center as an abstract notion
> defined by pundits, etc. I'm talking about a democratic definition of 
> the
> center: the actual position of the median voter in an engaged 
> electorate.
> This would be a valuable process because it would give the nation an
> opportunity to explore and seek its own political center. It would give
> people an opportunity to try to move the center on a given issue by
> gradual intervals, rather than in chaotic all or nothing bounds. I 
> think
> that one of the principle weaknesses of our current system is that it 
> does
> not enable us to know where our political center is, or to act from it,
> develop it, to keep it flexible and responsive.

It seems to me that it is more or less an article of faith among 
Condorcet/Approval supporters that "if we build it, they will come."  
That is, as long as we have an election method that allows for finding 
and electing the median voter, such candidates will inevitably arise 
and run for office.

But is that true?  More precisely, do we have any evidence that such 
will be the case?  I fervently hope so, but I am concerned that such 
candidates may not naturally arise in our existing system.  I'd love to 
see data/arguments/evidence suggesting that a Condorcet-efficient 
method will naturally lead to better candidates.  Both to help me sleep 
at night, but also to understand if there's specific things we can/need 
to do in order to encourage such candidates.

The main data point that causes me concern is that all the various 
minor parties I see in California actually seem more extreme and less 
centrist than the duopoly.  As long as we have primaries -- and all the 
organized parties are non-centrist ideologically driven -- the fear is 
that sensible centrist candidates will place party loyalty above public 
interest (sorry, I don't consider Ralph Nader centrist), and not run 
even without fear of the spoiler effect.   The one time we had a 
non-primaried open election and elected a centrist (Arnold) it was 
largely on his own money rather than party support.

I guess the real question is whether we can truly have centrist 
candidates without centrist parties, and whether there *are* such 
parties.  I suspect that is the implicit claim of the IRVers - centrist 
*by definition* means uninspiring, and thus would never create 'core 
support' (i.e., a party).

Any evidence they're wrong?

-- Ernie P.