From Stark
In this report from the Associated Press, Democrats are touting Medicare as the issue that enabled a Democrat to score an upset win for a New York congressional seat in a Tuesday, May 24 special election.
I’m not saying that’s not true, but it’s also worth noting that this was a three-way race: The winning Democrat got 47 percent of the votes cast. The Republican got 43 percent, and a third candidate, described as a “wealthy tea party candidate,” got nine percent. Forty-three plus 9 equals 52, which indicates to me that the Democrats don’t enjoy majority support in this district.
Three-or-four-candidate general elections are bad for democracy, IMHO. Members of Congress, as well as Presidents, should be able to take office only after getting a majority of the votes. But the system doesn’t always work that way.
And as our politics become increasingly fragmented at the national level, I dread the day when a President takes the oath of office with 38 percent of the voters behind her or him.
A Tea Party candidate took 9% of the vote but did that subtract from the GOP or add to the Democrat?
I’ll guess the latter since the Tea Party is dead.
A presidential candidate doesn’t need even 38% of the voters to win since the popular tally hasn’t anything to do with the election of a president.
We have an elite group that decides on their own who will win the White House.
And no I don’t mean Roger Ailes, George Soros and Antonin Scalia.
my point exactly. If we were smart (and we’re not) we would abolish the electoral college and select the president by popular vote, with a primary and a two-candidate-only runoff. That would shift us back to a sane and healthy politics of moderation. Maybe.
Probably nothing magic about 43 percent, but two presidents in my time were elected with 43 percent of the vote: Bill Clinton in 1992 thanks to Ross Perot at 19 percent, and Richard Nixon in 1968 thanks to George Wallace at 13.5 percent. That’s in popular vote, not the Electoral College, which does need to be abolished.
John,
If democracy was easy, everybody would have one.
“Three-or-four-candidate general elections are bad for democracy,…” is a statement that could only come from a person completely brainwashed by the phony “two party system”. All of the ills currently plaguing this nation are a result of the abject failure of this illegitimate system. Nothing in the Constitution designated this system to be the only choice for “democracy”. Both of the current “parties” have melded into one ideological dictatorship to maintain and increase the power of the ruling Corporate Oligarchy. The Republican ideology has never changed. They oppose civil rights, democracy, human rights, and individual freedoms in favor of Corporate, free market, free enterprise, rule where the individual is subservient to the Corporate collective. All using the adjective “free” to give false cover to the true nature of the Corporate pyramid scams. The Democrats take the lead to destroy any recent attempts for 3rd or 4th parties to provide alternatives to the “One party” rule. The Republicans use their control of the Corporate Media to spew the propaganda of one or two, religious-based issues to feed the fires generated in every pulpit throughout the nation. Parties devoted to human rights and democracy are anathema to the current two parties. Of the Corporation, By the Corporation, For the Corporation, is the true ideology of these two traitorous entities claiming democracy values while using all the power of government to prevent any democracy from rearing its golden head above the polluted land and waters of the Corporate Oligarchy. A political “analyst” restricting the citizenry to one of two of the same choices merely regurgitates a dogma ensuring the final destruction of all democracy within this nation.
More than two candidates in an election are GOOD for democracy.
If the leading candidate gets less than ’50%+1 vote’ a run-off should be required between the top 2 candidates, even with our present Electoral College Presidential system.
If only 2 candidates are running in an election the required winning margin should be increased from ’50%+1 vote’ to ’50%+1% or 2%’, to avoid the expense of and time consumed by endless contested recounts.
Washington’s present Primary system mandating that the top 2 vote getters for an office go to the General Election regardless of party affiliation may be popular but it’s not good for democracy!
If Democracy was desired,
we wouldn’t need a Trillion-dollar machine to install one.
And once a popular vote was cast anywhere on the planet,
we wouldn’t spend another Trillion trying to subvert it.
The Electoral College was a good idea back when America was a struggling nation of uneducated citizens that couldn’t be trusted to choose correctly.
But now we count proudly on that attribute so the College must go.
Thanks for clarifying my point, fallingwater. When it comes to candidates, the more the merrier–but winnow them out in primary rounds, then give the election to the winner of a top-two general election.
Dodson: I’m not advocating for a “two-party system.” I’m just saying we should make sure there’s a runoff system to make sure the person elected has at least grudging support from a majority of voters. But I’m not going to waste a lot of time on all this theoretical debate (that I myself started in an unguarded moment.) The fact is, our political gridlock is going to keep the current system in place for quite awhile, IMHO.
A friend of mine is currently visiting Sweden to explore the possibility of immigrating there. Sweden has a multi-party parliamentary democracy where any party that wins more than 4% of the popular vote enjoys proportional representation in the legislature.
There are currently two main blocks of parties, a center-left coalition of the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left Party, and a center-right block led by the Moderate Party, which is allied with the Centre Party, the Liberal People’s Party, and the Christian Democrats. Together, this coalition comprises the center-right Alliance for Sweden.
Of course, such a multi-party system, with its hodge-podge of political parties, might seem overly confusing to many Americans, but the system has advantages, in that it requires a great deal of negotiated compromises and nearly everyone has some say. In effect, a minority party can threaten to withhold their support, unless at least some of their concerns are addressed. On other hand, no minority party could ever hold the system hostage to their will or completely block legislation, by withholding their support. Conversely, no party enjoys enough popular support to ever ram legislation through parliament, without the consent of other parties.
For the past several decades, coalitions led by either the Moderate Party or the Social Democrats have formed majority governments in parliament. However, during the last election in 2010, a more radical, far-right, pro-family, anti-immigrant party, called the Sweden Democrats, won 5.7% of the vote. Incidentally, if having “Democrats” on both sides of the political divide is causing your head to spin or your eyes to glaze over, let me clarify: the Social Democrats are lefties, whereas the Sweden Democrats are a new fringe party, far to the right of center, roughly analogous to our Tea Party here in the U.S.
When the Sweden Democrats won 20 seats in parliament last year, they effectively prevented a majority government from forming, because all of the other Swedish parties decided to give them the cold shoulder. So, ever since the 2010 elections, the center-right coalition, the Alliance for Sweden, has been two or three seats short of a majority, because they refuse to ally with the Sweden Democrats. Thus, the Alliance for Sweden has had to lead the country as a minority government (which, btw, is somewhat similar to what is currently happening in the U.K.).
I imagine there have been plenty of times this year when Republican leaders, such as John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, have wished they could simply freeze out and ignore members of the Tea Party, but our system was designed to limit the powers of government and prevent a tyranny of the majority. Thus, we have separation of powers, with a bicameral legislature, but we also have two strongly polarized political parties that are hampered by their own minorities or beginning to fragment (Blue Dogs on the left and Tea Partiers on the right). This has led to an utterly dysfunctional system that is being hamstrung by tyrannies of the minority.
The Democrats can’t overcome Republican filibusters in the Senate, and Republicans in the House can’t pass anything without Tea Party approval. Consequently, the 112th Congress has yet to pass even a single major piece of legislation. We are currently in the midst of a huge jobs crisis, but Congress is gridlocked and completely paralyzed. We just have to wait for the 2012 elections, while in the meantime, the shrillest voices rise from the radical fringe to dominate our political discourses. Because the Tea Party minority can block anything from happening (this is called “concurrent majority”), their piercing screams are heard loud and clear, while the more modest voices of moderate Conservatives and Democrats in the broad middle are downplayed, stifled, or ignored by our media.
Even when the Democrats enjoyed majorities in both Houses of Congress, they couldn’t pass legislation over the objections of the obstructionist party of “NO!” It is now painfully obvious that our system of government has become completely incapacitated by a two party system so ideologically polarized they are unable to form consensus on any issue, let alone the grave matters of consequence currently facing the nation.
It’s high time for political reform. We need a multiparty system that encourages coalitions, cooperation, and consensus that is dominated by the broad and sensible middle. At least, then, the loud-mouthed radicals would be relegated to their rightful place at the margins of the political order, instead of being able to hold the entire system hostage to their absurd demands.
Democrats have found the road to victory by running a fake tea party candidate and the exaggeration of Paul Ryan’s medicare stand!
Victory is everything even if the new spelling of democrat is today known as: disingenuous and demigodic!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“Democrats believe they have found a winning strategy for the 2012 elections – lie to the American people about the GOP plan to save Medicare and to mock and misrepresent any proposal that would cut back on Barack Obama’s historic spending levels.
Despite the fact that Obama has tripled the national deficit, democrats have no intention of cutting spending even if it bankrupts the country.
They believe this is a winning strategy for 2012…..
http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/05/paul-ryan-posts-path-to-prosperity-part-ii-to-counter-dem-lies-about-medicare-video/
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
You can’t fake a Tea Person
there’s not enough loose BS available in that Party to spare any to stuff into a candidate.
And handing out vouchers to old sick people for private insurance that’s not even available,
hardly needs any misrepresentation.
Ryan’s budget is DOA for many reasons,
not the least of which is $8 Trillion more in deficits for rich people tax breaks over the coming decade.
Throwing elderly tax-paying Americans to the curb by privatizing Medicare and giving huge tax cuts to Britney Spears is neither “brave” nor “serious” — it’s criminal.
The GOP will continue to suffer for their un-American, anti-elderly stupidity. (As they should.)
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I am upset after paying a lifetime into a system that political junkies of one party wants it to go away. I am a senior on a fixed income. Change does not seem fair to me.