[EM] voting methods praxis, value of spoilers

[James Green-Armytage]

Bart Ingles wrote:
>How do you know that this isn't what happened?  Except that perhaps
>Nader and Gore couldn't agree on what constituted a 'reasonable
>concession', or maybe that the Democrats didn't take Nader seriously
>enough.  If the latter, I doubt that they will repeat the mistake.   :-)

I reply:
	From what Kerry has said, and what Nader has said, I think that Kerry
didn't even ask Nader to drop out of the race (or to endorse Kerry), and
Nader didn't offer to do so under any conditions. 
	Of course I'm not completely sure about this, but the point of my
proposal for third party carrot-and-stick strategy is that the third party
candidate (Nader in this case) calls as much attention as possible to the
fact that he is offering to withdraw given a particular set of
concessions, which he would also publicize as widely as possible. That is,
the point isn't to make some sort of back room deal. The point is to make
the deal public and transparent.
	And that should really help the cause of the third party candidate, and
the chances that a deal will be successful. The idea is that the third
party candidate should develop the list of possible concessions with as
much consultation of his base as possible. And then, when he brings it to
the major party candidate, you'd want to have a tape of the meeting, a
transcription, or at least a summary of what was said, to become publicly
available. If the outcome of the meeting is inconclusive, the third party
candidate might want to consult with his base somewhat and try again. 
	(Actually, if not a tape of the meeting itself, it would be good to get a
tape of the major party candidate standing up and saying "I will do X Y Z"
or "I support R S T". Because then the major party candidate would know
that if he got elected and changed his mind and didn't do those things, he
would be in sh*t city come election time, because his opponents could
embarrass him by playing the tape.)
	Or, if it seems like a stalemate where the major party candidate is
unwilling to make any real concessions, the third party candidate can
withhold endorsement, run in earnest, saying "look, I offered candidate D
(the Democrat, or whatever) an endorsement if only they would stand with
us on these few very reasonable and important points, but candidate D
refused." 
	That would give the third party base important information to use when
deciding whether to compromise and vote for candidate D or not. Some of
them might think that the concession issues were too ambitious, and might
go ahead and vote for candidate D. Some of them will vote for the third
party to punish candidate D for his stubbornness. But again, the point of
the concession issues is that they should strike a balance between being
acceptable to candidate D and representing a positive change in his
platform. Herein lies the subtle, interesting, difficult part of the
process. The point isn't to expect the major party candidate to become a
clone of the third party candidate. The point is for the major party
candidate to incorporate a few key issues from the third party platform.
And again, I don't see why alternative voting methods shouldn't be one of
those issues at some point in time.
	My perception of Nader's current campaign is that it is neither subtle,
nor interesting, nor intelligent. The issues which he ostensibly stands
for are quite noble, but his strategy for achieving them seems sorely
backasswards. I don't think that Nader is giving Kerry much incentive to
move to the left, since it seems likely that either way Nader will
continue to bitch about the "Republocrats", and most of the people who
support Nader will not be paying enough attention to notice the change
anyway.

	It's foolish for progressives to want to "replace" the Democratic party
with the Green party or some other party, within the context of the
plurality system. The Democratic party is not some small committee of
scheming elites, but is rather made up of millions of ordinary American
voters. People like Nader who say they are progressives and they want to
win an office should vie for the Democratic nomination, and progressive
citizens should vote for them in the primaries. Even if, after years of
horrific one-party Republican rule due to Green spoiling, the Democratic
party eventually collapsed and the Greens became the other Duvergian
party, I see no reason why they wouldn't sooner or later develop the same
"establishment" tendencies that they now criticize in the Democrats. Power
corrupts, and so does the pressure to get enough money to run viable
campaigns against the Republicans. People like Nader have the luxury of
freely stating their own opinions because they know that they can't win
anyway... once they were in a close race where they were the only
alternative to the Republican, you might see them making some concessions
to monied interests or to complacent suburban conservativism.
	Many people have said it, and I agree: I suspect that Nader is running
partly out of ego... to be someone important, to have crowds cheering for
him, to have his name in the papers. It's tempting, no? But I don't think
that the reason for those cheering crowds is entirely a noble one,
although it appears to be on the surface. I think that at some point he is
appealing not to a progressive's desire to create a better society, which
is really quite difficult and arduous, but instead to the destructive
aspect of human nature, the desire to reject, to combat, to tear down, to
oppose. It is easier to destroy than to create, and I think that Nader's
campaign is in essence one of destruction, i.e. to destroy the Democratic
party, which is supposed to represent "us", but has grown impure and must
therefore be punished. 

	Anyway, my proposal stands, for a way that third parties can behave
productively within the plurality system. The fact that Nader has decided
to stick to a less productive strategy means that I do not sympathize with
him. I think that the problem with Nader is not a failure of the plurality
system or a failure of the Democratic party, it is his own failure to run
a campaign that is primarily constructive rather than destructive.

Sincerely,
James Green-Armytage