Subject:
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Re: Good news for collectors (was Re: 1593 box photos!)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 24 Mar 2001 07:52:05 GMT
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Viewed:
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409 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Powell writes:
>
> However, I would say that both US parties are so middle of the road that it is
> almost funny to see. Neither party could get elected if they were not middle
> of the road, which is why I perfer to see 3 major parties (that way, you tend
> to have a centeralist, and a left and right wing... <snip, snip>
Leaving aside the linear political analysis (see Larry's post here:
http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=9573 and more below), one
explanation of this phenomenon is quite interesting.
Say there's a scale with 0 as far Left as possible in a system, and 100 as
far Right. A Leftist party can be at 25 (or 15 or 0) and attract all the
votes from 1-50, so long as the Rightist party also sits at 75 (or 85 or
100), and attracts all the votes from 51-100. But then there's a temptation
for both parties to move further to the centre, where they might pick up
more votes from "the other side". So you get parties at 40 and 60, or 50 and
50, or 75 and 75. The irony is that assuming that popular politics are
static the parties needn't shift at all -- they'll still be attractive to
half the population at 25 and 75.
The danger with 50 and 50 (and even more so with 75 and 75 (or 35 and 35))
is that you leave the radical (ie 0-15, 85-100) constituencies behind. Which
can be important in, for instance, a close presidential election.
Where does this leave a centrist party? Since presumably no mainstream party
deliberately eschews a large block of voters to promote its policy, in the
linear model the centrists will get hammered from both sides. If it sits at
50, both the Left and the Right will encroach on its natural support base,
until it's left with nothing (at which time one of the mainstream parties
becomes the new centrist party, and a new radical group gains ground in its
old constituency).
However, if you take a two or three-dimensional model then things become
more interesting. The axes I like are 1. socialist-capitalist, 2.
progressive-conservative (radical-reactionary), and 3.
individualist-authoritarian. It becomes easier to find room for third
parties, and more difficult to distort real similarities and differences.
just some thoughts,
DaveL
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