[EM] Re: Your opinion

[Stephane Rouillon]

I agree with the predicted behavior to determine where to candidates
will run.
But I disagree with your last conclusion, maybe because I did not
express myself clearly. Every candidate in every "astrological" district

would come up with his/her personal matter. So the referendum are not
about one subject but about setting priorities between subjects.  Let me
show
a simplified example:

parties \ districts                    1
2                                    3
4                                        5                    ...
Ancestral                health (public)            gay wedding
(against)        drug legalization (against)  abortion
(pro-life)                health(public)
Bienheureux            free-trade(yes)            drug legalization
(against)    35 hours (against)                Kyoto
(against)            nationalizations (against)
Classical                health (mixt)                Kyoto
(against)                nuclear power (for)        prop represent
(against)     free-trade(yes)
Dynamic                drug legalization (for)     gay wedding
(for)        35 hours (for)                    Kyoto
(for)                    gay wedding (for)
Evolutive                health (private)            drug legalization
(for)        nuclear power (for)    health (private)
nuclear power (against)

Imagine 100 districts, some with direct confrontations, others not.
Every district is a poll, with equivalent population samples as input.
Suppose voters like "me": health (public), gay wedding (indifferent),
drug legalization (for), abortion (pro-choice), free-trade (yes),
35 hours (for), Kyoto (for), nationalizations (for), nuclear power
(against), prop representation (for).
Many people may think like "me" but with a different order of
priority...

In district 1: question is "what is my priority ?" A, B or D?
In district 2: E!!!
In district 3: D!!!
In district 4: D!!!
In district 5: A or E ?
and so on...

Suppose now the major stream (a sufficient plurality) has this order of
priorities:
 free-trade (yes) > prop representation (for) > health (mixt) > drug
legalization (for) > abortion (pro-choice) > Kyoto (for) >
nationalizations (for) > 35 hours (against) > nuclear power (against) >
gay wedding (against)
Thus, even if no party agrees with the major stream, SPPA can capture
it.
It would elect B1, C5, E2, D4 and maybe C1 instead of  B3 depending on
how much the health debate is more enthousisastic than the 35 hours
debate.
Thus, I think SPPA is equivalent to numerous small referendums to order
priorities among different sets of subjects and (positions).

This is how I see PR goal.
Steph

Markus Schulze a écrit :

> Dear Stephane,
>
> > The candidature process you describe happens already
> > for any other model. No?
>
> When a given specialist of the party in power is very
> popular, then the opposition party will not spend much
> money trying to defeat this person. It will rather run
> its own specialist in a different district and run an
> unimportant straw person against the specialist of the
> party in power. It is a matter of fact that when you
> want to win an election then it doesn't make much sense
> to attack the strong candidates of the party in power;
> it makes more sense to concentrate on the swing
> districts (i.e. those districts where the candidate of
> the party in power is neither too strong nor too weak).
> I don't believe that when SPPA is being used then
> elections become "equivalent to numerous small
> referendums".
>
> Markus Schulze