[EM] Re: approval strategy (Russ Paielli)

[RLSuter at aol.com]

Many comments about approval strategy have made little sense
to me, because they ignore the fact that strong supporters of a
particular candidate can have very divergent views about other
candidates. Using the 2004 U.S. presidential election as an
example, supporters each candidate, from the socialist candidates
on the "left" to the Constitution Party candidate on the "right,"
came in many different varieties, depending on what their
particular sets of major concerns were and the strengths of their
various concerns. (I've put the words left and right in quotes
because I don't think they are as usefully descriptive as most
people assume they are.)

For example, many people who own significant amounts of
stock might argue that only Bush and Kerry were acceptable
choices because the election of any other candidate could
have caused great economic uncertainty and endangered
the value of their stock holdings. Others who really liked one
of the third party candidates might have ranked Kerry and Bush
a close second and third (or vice versa) and approved all
three of them in an approval election because while they liked
what the third party candidate was proposing, they also liked
the apparent economic stabililty of electing one of the major
party candidates.

Then there are people who were much more strongly opposed
to either Kerry or Bush than they were in favor of any other
candidate. In fact, there appeared to be lots of "anybody
but Bush" and "anybody but Kerrry" voters. In the case of
such voters, the best strategy in an approval election would
be to approve every candidate who appears to have any
chance at all of defeating the candidate they are particularly
strongly opposed to.

Given the great diversity of voter opinions on a variety of
key concerns, I just don't see how it is possible to state
formulas that are optimal for all or even most supporters
of particular candidates.

-Ralph Suter