That's because the small third parties that we are discussing right now are made up of people who are, by definition, unwilling to compromise. If they were willing to compromise, they'd probably not be part of that party.
Can you elaborate on that argument? IIRC there are several examples in Europe to show that minor green parties can grow into a significant political force. What makes it impossible for the US Greens to follow the same course?
I'm not sure that you're not putting the cart before the horse here. When you're a fringe party, you don't compromise because there's nothing to be gained from doing so. You probably get a lot of your votes from people who feel strongly about one particular issue.
Compromising on that issue risks losing your hard-core supporters, and there's not much to be gained from doing so - after all, you're still not going to win anything in the next election. (And, let's be blunt, you can afford to make all the promises you want, knowing you're never going to be called upon to keep them.) Here, not compromising doesn't say much about your ability to do so - it's merely a recognition that there's nothing to be gained.
But when the party's support base grows, compromising becomes more useful. As you move away from being a single-issue party (as the Australian Greens are currently doing), you have more room to compromise without wiping out your support base - and if you're big enough, compromising might actually get you something tangible.
Granted, but listen: Bush is not a problem because he is Bush. He's a problem because the extremist factions who had previously marginalized themselves have taken hold of a disproportionate amount of power within the Republican Party: they run the show.
You're talking as if the Republicans weren't that bad until 2000, when Buchanan fed them some extremists. I think that's a little over-generous; they may have gotten worse, but they were plenty bad enough to start with. Bush is a bumbling, ignorant, underachieving nincompoop, who has the connections to get him into the Presidency; that's a nightmare with or without Buchanan's ex-shipmates. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, and the rest of the current gang of bastards - weren't most of them deeply entrenched in the Republican party machine long before 2000?
And like it or not, even without trying, that party has the support of 40-50% of the country.
Nitpick: Of those who actually *vote*. More like 25% of the country as a whole.
Less influential than what? I don't believe that voting for a marginalized party is influential at all,
It was very influential in 2000. Not in the manner Nader's voters would have preferred, but the fact remains that had the Democrats managed to woo a few more of those supporters they'd have won the presidency. Which is a powerful incentive for any Democratic candidate to at least consider the left side as well as the right.
(Not that I think that'll be much of an issue in this election; IMHO, Kerry can afford to pretty much ignore the left, because most will hold their nose and vote for whatever looks like the best chance of beating Bush. But in future elections, the memory of 2000 may be influential.
I could wish for the same to happen here, but honestly? Not going to happen. I believe that the keys to reform of our electoral system are firmly in the hands of the people who don't want to see it.
Oh, I don't think the Nationalists introduced preferential voting out of the goodness of their hearts :-) It was just a saleable way of boosting their power - the right thing done for selfish reasons.
And as things stand, it might well be in the Democrats' interests to introduce such a system. With preferential voting, they'd presumably have won the last election.
(I doubt they *will* introduce it, because the American public seem to be fundamentally incompetent when it comes to electoral systems, and making the change and educating voters about the new system would probably seem like too much hard work. Just like I don't see the USA going over to metric any time soon...)
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zvi
Re: Afterthought
Date: 2004-03-06 03:27 (UTC)Can you elaborate on that argument? IIRC there are several examples in Europe to show that minor green parties can grow into a significant political force. What makes it impossible for the US Greens to follow the same course?
I'm not sure that you're not putting the cart before the horse here. When you're a fringe party, you don't compromise because there's nothing to be gained from doing so. You probably get a lot of your votes from people who feel strongly about one particular issue.
Compromising on that issue risks losing your hard-core supporters, and there's not much to be gained from doing so - after all, you're still not going to win anything in the next election. (And, let's be blunt, you can afford to make all the promises you want, knowing you're never going to be called upon to keep them.) Here, not compromising doesn't say much about your ability to do so - it's merely a recognition that there's nothing to be gained.
But when the party's support base grows, compromising becomes more useful. As you move away from being a single-issue party (as the Australian Greens are currently doing), you have more room to compromise without wiping out your support base - and if you're big enough, compromising might actually get you something tangible.
Granted, but listen: Bush is not a problem because he is Bush. He's a problem because the extremist factions who had previously marginalized themselves have taken hold of a disproportionate amount of power within the Republican Party: they run the show.
You're talking as if the Republicans weren't that bad until 2000, when Buchanan fed them some extremists. I think that's a little over-generous; they may have gotten worse, but they were plenty bad enough to start with. Bush is a bumbling, ignorant, underachieving nincompoop, who has the connections to get him into the Presidency; that's a nightmare with or without Buchanan's ex-shipmates. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, and the rest of the current gang of bastards - weren't most of them deeply entrenched in the Republican party machine long before 2000?
And like it or not, even without trying, that party has the support of 40-50% of the country.
Nitpick: Of those who actually *vote*. More like 25% of the country as a whole.
Less influential than what? I don't believe that voting for a marginalized party is influential at all,
It was very influential in 2000. Not in the manner Nader's voters would have preferred, but the fact remains that had the Democrats managed to woo a few more of those supporters they'd have won the presidency. Which is a powerful incentive for any Democratic candidate to at least consider the left side as well as the right.
(Not that I think that'll be much of an issue in this election; IMHO, Kerry can afford to pretty much ignore the left, because most will hold their nose and vote for whatever looks like the best chance of beating Bush. But in future elections, the memory of 2000 may be influential.
I could wish for the same to happen here, but honestly? Not going to happen. I believe that the keys to reform of our electoral system are firmly in the hands of the people who don't want to see it.
Oh, I don't think the Nationalists introduced preferential voting out of the goodness of their hearts :-) It was just a saleable way of boosting their power - the right thing done for selfish reasons.
And as things stand, it might well be in the Democrats' interests to introduce such a system. With preferential voting, they'd presumably have won the last election.
(I doubt they *will* introduce it, because the American public seem to be fundamentally incompetent when it comes to electoral systems, and making the change and educating voters about the new system would probably seem like too much hard work. Just like I don't see the USA going over to metric any time soon...)