[EM] hello from DLW of "A New Kind of Party":long time electoral reform enthusiast/iconoclast-wannabe...

[Jameson Quinn]

The reason PR makes you sound more like a whiny loser than single-winner
reform is that PR is essentially a results-oriented idea. If you say you
want PR, people know that you mean you want different winners, and they can
easily check who that would be in practice. And that makes it easy for them
to pigeonhole you.

Single-winner reform lets you talk about process and deeper issues more
easily, and because immediate results are harder to predict exactly, it's
harder to pigeonhole and easier to keep the focus on longer-term results.

I think we agree on the deeper goals, I'm just saying that it would be a
mistake to stop talking about both PR and single-winner reform, even if you
think PR is more important.

JQ

2011/10/31 David L Wetzell <wetzelld at gmail.com>

>
> Also, it is very easy to sound like a whiny loser when talking about PR
>> (either a third-party loser or local-minority-party loser). So there's no
>> way single-winner issues should be put on the back burner. We can walk and
>> chew gum here. (Gum on back burner ... eewww)
>> Jameson:Also, it is very easy to sound like a whiny loser when talking
>> about PR (either a third-party loser or local-minority-party loser). So
>> there's no way single-winner issues should be put on the back burner. We
>> can walk and chew gum here. (Gum on back burner ... eewww)
>>
>>
>> dlw: once again, if we frame it as solving a problem then it's not a
> matter of whining.
> 3-5 seat forms of PR or quasi-PR are very much needed for "more local"
> elections that otherwise tend to be rarely competitive due to de facto
> segregation.
>
> This is not about getting third party candidates elected, it's about
> making our polity tend towards a contested(and far more dynamic) political
> duopoly, rather than a (somewhat contested) political monopoly.
>
> dlw
>
>
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