http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022902786.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
Best part: "By now it is no secret that a large segment of the public has soured on "Washington." To denizens of the District, this can seem a childish, naive sentiment. It's not. What Americans have turned against is the broken two-party system. According to a poll taken last year by the firm I founded, Penn, Schoen & Berland, 61 percent of voters say that having a third-party candidate on the ballot in the presidential race would be beneficial to America. A poll by the Luntz Maslansky Group found that 81 percent of the electorate would consider voting for a third-party candidate."
Please, please - let's keep going with this! (Maybe not in this election, but in the next and the next and the next - who knows how many choices we could have - and by free market logic, more choices=more competition=increased efficiency - our political system needs more of this than perhaps any other abstract quality!) Although I'm still not sure about Nader, specifically; can anyone concisely explain his views to me (I'm just not that familiar...)?
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I used to toot the multiple-party horn also, but I have since seen the error of my ways. (Watching Spanish politics in action has certainly helped change my opinion.)
It is an oversimplistic view to think more parties will make everything better. If there is one thing they will certainly NOT do is make anything more efficient.
A multi-party system rewards extremism. The smaller political parties can afford to focus on one extreme view and garner votes from those people who care only about that position. While they will not achieve a majority in congress, the larger centrist parties will not either, so they will be forced to pact with these small extreme groups in order to be able to pass legislature on other issues.
The "mainstream" party that wins the most votes may be irrelevant if the other mainstream party is more effective at pacting with fringe parties.
By contrast, the two-party system pushes the two parties towards the center, and discourages extremism.
In more specific terms, I count myself in the camp of people who wish Nader would just go away. His politics are irrelevant, because the American system makes it impossible for him to win. The only important thing about Nader is who he will be taking votes away from--and as such it is not surprising that most of his financial support comes from die-hard Republicans.
Noted, but I certainly don't agree. Firstly, I think there is a gigantic difference in culture, political or otherwise, between the United States and Spain. Secondly, I think the difference in the size of the two populations would come into play. While I will grant that your argument is accurate in the case in Spain (which has a very different political history from the U.S.), I know it doesn't hold universally. I unfortunately am swamped at work, but will be responding to this eventually. Thanks for responding - though given the political environment in the United States during the past 8 years (or hell, since Vietnam) - I do question your assertion that "the two-party system pushes the two parties towards the center, and discourages extremism."
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