Voter choice and polarization

Mitt Romney is desperately trying to make the election a referendum on the economy.  Whenever possible, he is refusing to give any details about his plans, choosing instead to focus on poor current conditions.  He and his running mate today both refused to answer direct questions about which tax deductions they would eliminate to pay for their promised income tax rate cuts.  They can (maybe) get away with this because, thanks to our voting system, there are only two options perceived as viable, so all one side has to do is damage the other side so badly that they win by default.  Republicans have dedicated the last 4 years to this purpose.

If we were to switch to a system which encourages multiple parties, this destructive, all-negative strategy would be impossible.  Devoting one's resources to tearing down one opponent doesn't work when there are more than one alternative available.  In a theoretical race between Romney, Obama and Candidate X, Romney could spend all the time he likes tearing down Obama, but he would then have to be specific about why he's better than Candidate X.  With even more parties, negative campaigning becomes less and less effective and presenting one's own vision becomes the only real option.

Duverger's Law and Cognitive Dissonance

Duverger's Law states that a plurality voting system (like ours, with one vote per voter, most votes wins) greatly encourages two overwhelmingly dominant parties, resulting from, for example, Libertarians and pinko commies like me voting for more-electable candidates even though other candidates better represent our views.

For the great number of us who feel more passionately about one issue or another, our system forces them into one or the other party, which has lots of other views which our votes support.   Pro-life voters are pressured to support waterboarding and corporate tax cuts, while supporters of unions vote for Obamacare and gun control.

With only two choices, a fair degree of cognitive dissonance might arise.  A voter who on their own would hold one position or another might find themselves conflicted after years of voting for candidates who hold the other position.  To avoid the cognitive dissonance, they might begin to soften/change their views.  In a system with multiple parties (or a system where the voting system doesn't so strongly discourage multiple parties), voters are more free to think for themselves.

My dream candidate, apparently

I took this online questionnaire thingy to identify the candidate I most agree with on the issues.  It seems that Green Party candidate Jill Stein is the one for me.  But unfortunately, thanks to our voting system and Duverger's Law, I'll wind up voting for Obama and the system will fail to accurately record my true policy preferences.

More on Duverger's Law, and how the two-party system is a tremendously destructive force in our democracy, tomorrow.  Er, later today.

Post will be late

Looks like I have to give refunds again.

Don't judge me

You might remember Gabby Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman shot in the head in Tuscon last year.  Here's her first post-shooting interview, with Diane Sawyer:

This was the last time I'd heard Giffords speak.  Tonight, she led the Pledge at the convention:

Well, to be honest, I wept like an infant.

Now, I have enough political cynicism and medical knowledge to accept the possibility that there are complex neurologic reasons she might be more successful at this kind of recitation than with spontaneous language, but darn it, it's inspiring how well she's doing.

Ratings as sign of apocalypse

These are the ratings for the news outlets on the first nights of the two conventions.  The 10 o'clock hour of these conventions is a series of speeches without interruption, so there's no real reason to watch one channel or another.  But the ratings for the cable news networks reflect the significant changes in the makeup of the people watching the events, with massive swings away from Fox News after the RNC and toward MSNBC and CNN.  This reflects the huge numbers of people who only ever hear one side of the story.  It's probably pretty easy for those millions of people to think of the other party as a caricature.

Barney Frank sums it up

Tonight at the convention, Frank told CNN:

[L]ook at the contrast. George Bush came to us on the Democratic side in late '08 and said, we're in a crisis, we need your help -- and we gave it to him, very openly, very fully. Then Obama comes in to try to deal with the terrible situation he inherited from bush and the republican media went into full partisan attack. [Senate Republican Leader] Mitch McConnell announcing his number one goal was to defeat the president

I continue to hold out hope that voters will punish Republicans for their intransigence.

Romney predicts sky blue

Romney has been promising that if he's elected, the US will create 12 million jobs during his first term.  Sounds impressive, until one considers that 12 million jobs is about what one would expect regardless of who's President.

It's tempting to write this off as Romney trying to score some cheap points and maybe help his possible re-election chances if he "delivers" the expected result.  But Romney is depending on "faster economic growth" to make his tax plan work without raising taxes on the middle class.  If his predictions don't actually forecast faster job growth, how likely is it that growth will make up the shortfalls in his tax plan?  

vouchercare

Paul Krugman has taken to referring to the Republican plan to replace Medicare with vouchers as "Vouchercare", arguing that the premium supports are fundamentally different from the current program.  Today, Joe Biden started using the term himself.

I think it would be more appropriate to refer to it as "vouchercare", to reflect the fact that the vouchers aren't big enough.

What's Mitt's plan for Afghanistan?

2,109 American soldiers have died in Afghanistan, including 245 just this year.  Yet Mitt Romney didn't have anything to say about it in the biggest speech of his life.  Not one word.  Obama called him out on it today.

It's an impossible situation for Romney.  Obama's position is that we should carry out a gradual withdrawal finishing by the end of 2014.  What can Romney say in response?  He of course can't agree with Obama.  He can't say we'll be there more or less forever like McCain proposed for Iraq without alienating a huge majority of Americans ready for the war to end.  And he can't advocate leaving immediately without losing a chunk of his base.  So what does he do but hope to avoid the subject of a war involving the country he hopes to lead?