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East Meets West has moved!

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1. lvdjgarcia Says:
   October 26th, 2008 at 11:37 pm

   I’m a staunch opponent of the “Big Tent” theory that both Republicans & Democrats try to claim. Parties ned to have principles. What has happened to both major parties is that they have become tribe like, w/o rational thought as to why they belong to the party they support. This is why you have the “Blue Dog” Democrats and the “Rockefeller” Republicans. These to groups are touted as a moderating force within the parties but when you examine their real impact it is minimal (examples: Collins R:ME and Landrieu D:LA have little real impact on their parties platforms) as is their independence.
   This all seems to bode well for the argument for multiple parties, but our system is not capable of dealing w/more than 2 parties Election laws at the local, state and federal levels would need to be altered to deal with elections in which the “winner” would receive less than 50% +1 of the votes(example: Minnesota 1998-Ventura was elected governor w/37% of the vote). How would a Presidential election be decided if their were 4 candidates, none receiving more than 30 % of the vote, but one winning CA, NY, OH, FL & PA these states account for 154 electoral votes. Any changes to the process of electing the President would require a Constitutional Amendment. The final argument against multiple parties? Italy, Greece, Israel, all these countries have had to deal w/trying to form minority governments that inevitably fail.
   So what do we do? First parties must have principles that they require members to adhere to. Second, election laws must be reformed to allow time and procedures for run-off elections for the top 2 candidates. Third, the electoral college must be modified to require proportional allocation. Additionally a system would have to be devised to ensure that allows voters to choice a 2nd choice candidate that electors would be committed to in the event that the voters 1st choice fails to achieve enough votes to finish 1st or 2nd.
   Bottom Line: The current system is terrible, but better than the alternatives.

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