I know that 31% is not insignificant but... it's not great either. If this was an incumbent, then there's probably a fair number of people who would've voted for _whoever_ the opposition candidate was.
I do like the idea of always running opposition candidates though, to force the other person to raise & spend campaign funds.
I do like the idea of always running opposition candidates though, to force the other person to raise & spend campaign funds.
Needing to raise campaign funds is a big issue. Some congressman feel that it's almost a full time job calling donors. I rather not have that scenario and have them actually reading and considering legislation.
Soooooo to give you an argument ad absurdum, wouldn't it be ideal to have a monarchy/dictatorship so that our leaders can spend time thinking about legislation rather than those pesky elections?
Another alternative would be longer terms. Like 10-year, 20-year, or life-long terms?
I'm trying to think of an honest solution to the problem you've raised and I haven't found one that seems better. Maybe donors should be more humble, and be okay with an aid-to-the-legislator calling them for money?
If they were consistently responsible and accountable, a monarchy or even a dictatorship would be a better option. Campaigning is overhead loss; it's not desirable in itself, but is done because the obvious alternatives for maintaining accountability are significantly worse.
A high emphasis on fundraising is risky: a candidate who wins on donor money is going to be beholden to those donors (or won't get the money next election). I think there's a non-partisan case in favor of the state funding political campaigns, and limiting how much money goes into them.
"Falsehood" in formal logic means "a contradiction", not "a condition impossible to fulfill." It may be impossible to get a good dictator (except Cincinnatus, Sulla, and maybe Octavian Augustus), but "good dictator" isn't contradictory (as opposed to "neutron star not containing any neutrons" or the like).
And I mentioned a few examples of good dictators in that parenthetical, which suggest some of the requirements necessary to get a good one.
Your argument ad absurdum doesn't make any sense in this context because the problem isn't with elections but with how much they cost to compete in. A senate campaign in a competitive state like Florida or Pennsylvania costs tens of millions of dollars that candidates have to waste time raising from major donors instead of listening to the whole electorate and representing their interests. The more their opponents raise, the more they have to raise and it becomes a vicious cycle that only benefits whoever sells the candidates all that ad space.
There is a very obvious solution: publicly funded elections.
Cool, coming back at ya: (and the other sister comments suggesting campaign finance funding & limits)
The problem with publicly funded elections is that it gives the two major parties another way to lock-out independent/3rd-party candidates. There's usually some limit on who gets campaign money based off of past performance-- and if there wasn't a limit on who gets campaign money, then people would figure out how to run for Senate, and then spend their government-granted 10mil buying ads on their friend's podcast network.
It also runs into problems with free speech & Citizens United. Michael Moore tends to get noisy every election-- and in the most recent election he was able to explicitly say: "I prefer Clinton". In previous elections, before Citizens United, he would focus on political footballs that are highly partisan, so that his support for an issue was an easy proxy for support for a candidate, but it did not violate campaign finance laws. But it did violate the spirit of the campaign finance laws at the time, since he was raising money for a film that supported a candidate by proxy? But we should also be okay with that b/c free speech? You get yourself tangled real fast.
As with all major decisions there are many compromises to be made. When our representatives spend hours every day raising money throughout their political career I think we have clearly made the wrong ones.
> The problem with publicly funded elections is that it gives the two major parties another way to lock-out independent/3rd-party candidates. There's usually some limit on who gets campaign money based off of past performance
This is already a major barrier because the federal government provides tens of millions of dollars in funding to political parties whose presidential candidate gets a certain minimum percent of the popular vote (I don't remember if it is 5% or 15%). This publicly funded party infrastructure is what makes raising millions of dollars for a campaign possible by centralizing critical information like constituent data and donor lists. As far as independent/3rd party candidates themselves, publicly funded elections actually help them because it puts a hard limit on how much other candidates can use their financial advantage. It's a lot easier to compete using a volunteer ground campaign when your opponents aren't dumping millions into TV and radio ads as fast as they can raise it.
> and if there wasn't a limit on who gets campaign money, then people would figure out how to run for Senate, and then spend their government-granted 10mil buying ads on their friend's podcast network.
This happens all the time and there are already laws against it in many cases because its campaign finance fraud. It doesn't matter whether it's the tax payer or private donors. Publicly funded elections are worth the cost to the taxpayer of a few cases of fraud if it leads to better governance (which would lead to better protections against this kind of fraud).
> It also runs into problems with free speech & Citizens United.
That's not a valid criticism of publicly funded elections as a solution, only specific implementations and their feasibility. If federal publicly funded elections were implemented as a Constitutional amendment it would override the first amendment in a variety of ways depending on how it was worded. At that point any relevant precedent would be open to review at every level of the judiciary until the Supreme Court makes further decisions interpreting the new amendment's effect on precedent.
Don't know why it is absurd. Monarchies and dictatorships are forms of governments that either have been tried / still in power.
Longer terms is a possible solution. Think of house vs senate (2 vs 6 years). The house basically spends 50% of their time campaigning, because election year is every other year.
Maybe donors should be more humble, and be okay with an aid-to-the-legislator calling them for money?
The largest donors aren't just humble, they're aggressively donating/investing their money into parties/people. Your suggestion to this is meant for people like Sanders who gains his donations from "normal" people instead of the rich.
There isn't a solution I can think of. To the first point, when we talk about gov't and politics, we talk about power. The pull that power has on people, the wealth that can be attained, and human greed. There are pros and cons to different types of gov'ts. Single decision makers can change directions quickly, get things done faster, but fail faster too. Democracies are made to be slow with checks and balances, but sometimes it's too slow, can't adapt quick enough, and just because there are more people doesn't make it immune to corruption.
wouldn't it be ideal to have a monarchy/dictatorship so that our leaders can spend time thinking about legislation rather than those pesky elections?
There can be some reasonable arguments made for this to be the case. The future ruler could be educated in proper statesmanship, wouldn't have to pander to the masses, would arguably be more difficult to bribe, could focus on governing, etc.
But the failure mode of such a government seems to be much worse than a democracy's.
Similarly, we could just leave the current system alone except for one change: Pass laws requiring various media-flavored organizations to give equal airtime to every candidate. "Dear ESPN: If you want to operate in America, you must give each of these N candidates Y minutes of ads for free."
Strict campaign spending limits, ban tv advertising make all published literature have the candidates name or his/her agent and have the FCC mandate party political broadcasts.
I know that 31% is not insignificant but... it's not great either. If this was an incumbent, then there's probably a fair number of people who would've voted for _whoever_ the opposition candidate was.
See my other comment somewhere in this thread: IMO, the author got their arse kicked. I received 39%, didn't do nearly as much as the author, and I consider that a pretty solid defeat (but conveniently just shy of what I consider an arse kicking <g>). Somewhere there must be a study with hard numbers, but I figure X% just because I wasn't the other guy, Y% from voters who just randomly chose because they didn't really pay attention to the race, and 0.Z% from those that just screwed up the ballot. Leaving me with, I dunno, 20-25% who actually thought I was the better choice based on what they knew of me and the conversations we had. That's not a very good number. :-)
Not to take away from the main point, though. You want to run for office? You think you can do a better job? Then go do it. The barriers can be quite low for local offices, a bit higher for state offices. You'll get your arse kicked the first time around most likely. That's called "experience" and if you truly want to hold office, you'll be worlds ahead for next time. Most importantly, the vote is not a mandate on you as a person. I was soundly defeated, and that's fine: the people have spoken, and they said "come back in a few years when your better at this". Or they said, "the incumbent is doing a fine job, we see no reason to take a chance on someone new." But I never took it to be, "we just don't like you personally, mikestew."
In two-candidate races without write-ins, the minimum that any candidate got was 18.22%, and from scanning the numbers it feels like the median is in mid-30%s.
//edit also if someone at a PAC is reading, what they should really do is an analysis comparing campaign funding vs. votes received. Find the candidates that are making the most impact with the least amount of money. The candidates you agree with are the people who need support next election, and the candidates you disagree with are the dark horses you need to watch out for.
Comments
I know that 31% is not insignificant but... it's not great either. If this was an incumbent, then there's probably a fair number of people who would've voted for _whoever_ the opposition candidate was.
I do like the idea of always running opposition candidates though, to force the other person to raise & spend campaign funds.
Needing to raise campaign funds is a big issue. Some congressman feel that it's almost a full time job calling donors. I rather not have that scenario and have them actually reading and considering legislation.
Soooooo to give you an argument ad absurdum, wouldn't it be ideal to have a monarchy/dictatorship so that our leaders can spend time thinking about legislation rather than those pesky elections?
Another alternative would be longer terms. Like 10-year, 20-year, or life-long terms?
I'm trying to think of an honest solution to the problem you've raised and I haven't found one that seems better. Maybe donors should be more humble, and be okay with an aid-to-the-legislator calling them for money?
If they were consistently responsible and accountable, a monarchy or even a dictatorship would be a better option. Campaigning is overhead loss; it's not desirable in itself, but is done because the obvious alternatives for maintaining accountability are significantly worse.
A high emphasis on fundraising is risky: a candidate who wins on donor money is going to be beholden to those donors (or won't get the money next election). I think there's a non-partisan case in favor of the state funding political campaigns, and limiting how much money goes into them.
And thus we invoke the principle of explosion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion
https://xkcd.com/704/
"Falsehood" in formal logic means "a contradiction", not "a condition impossible to fulfill." It may be impossible to get a good dictator (except Cincinnatus, Sulla, and maybe Octavian Augustus), but "good dictator" isn't contradictory (as opposed to "neutron star not containing any neutrons" or the like).
And I mentioned a few examples of good dictators in that parenthetical, which suggest some of the requirements necessary to get a good one.
Your argument ad absurdum doesn't make any sense in this context because the problem isn't with elections but with how much they cost to compete in. A senate campaign in a competitive state like Florida or Pennsylvania costs tens of millions of dollars that candidates have to waste time raising from major donors instead of listening to the whole electorate and representing their interests. The more their opponents raise, the more they have to raise and it becomes a vicious cycle that only benefits whoever sells the candidates all that ad space.
There is a very obvious solution: publicly funded elections.
Cool, coming back at ya: (and the other sister comments suggesting campaign finance funding & limits)
The problem with publicly funded elections is that it gives the two major parties another way to lock-out independent/3rd-party candidates. There's usually some limit on who gets campaign money based off of past performance-- and if there wasn't a limit on who gets campaign money, then people would figure out how to run for Senate, and then spend their government-granted 10mil buying ads on their friend's podcast network.
It also runs into problems with free speech & Citizens United. Michael Moore tends to get noisy every election-- and in the most recent election he was able to explicitly say: "I prefer Clinton". In previous elections, before Citizens United, he would focus on political footballs that are highly partisan, so that his support for an issue was an easy proxy for support for a candidate, but it did not violate campaign finance laws. But it did violate the spirit of the campaign finance laws at the time, since he was raising money for a film that supported a candidate by proxy? But we should also be okay with that b/c free speech? You get yourself tangled real fast.
Secondary and tertiary side-effects. :-/
As with all major decisions there are many compromises to be made. When our representatives spend hours every day raising money throughout their political career I think we have clearly made the wrong ones.
> The problem with publicly funded elections is that it gives the two major parties another way to lock-out independent/3rd-party candidates. There's usually some limit on who gets campaign money based off of past performance
This is already a major barrier because the federal government provides tens of millions of dollars in funding to political parties whose presidential candidate gets a certain minimum percent of the popular vote (I don't remember if it is 5% or 15%). This publicly funded party infrastructure is what makes raising millions of dollars for a campaign possible by centralizing critical information like constituent data and donor lists. As far as independent/3rd party candidates themselves, publicly funded elections actually help them because it puts a hard limit on how much other candidates can use their financial advantage. It's a lot easier to compete using a volunteer ground campaign when your opponents aren't dumping millions into TV and radio ads as fast as they can raise it.
> and if there wasn't a limit on who gets campaign money, then people would figure out how to run for Senate, and then spend their government-granted 10mil buying ads on their friend's podcast network.
This happens all the time and there are already laws against it in many cases because its campaign finance fraud. It doesn't matter whether it's the tax payer or private donors. Publicly funded elections are worth the cost to the taxpayer of a few cases of fraud if it leads to better governance (which would lead to better protections against this kind of fraud).
> It also runs into problems with free speech & Citizens United.
That's not a valid criticism of publicly funded elections as a solution, only specific implementations and their feasibility. If federal publicly funded elections were implemented as a Constitutional amendment it would override the first amendment in a variety of ways depending on how it was worded. At that point any relevant precedent would be open to review at every level of the judiciary until the Supreme Court makes further decisions interpreting the new amendment's effect on precedent.
Don't know why it is absurd. Monarchies and dictatorships are forms of governments that either have been tried / still in power.
Longer terms is a possible solution. Think of house vs senate (2 vs 6 years). The house basically spends 50% of their time campaigning, because election year is every other year.
The largest donors aren't just humble, they're aggressively donating/investing their money into parties/people. Your suggestion to this is meant for people like Sanders who gains his donations from "normal" people instead of the rich.
There isn't a solution I can think of. To the first point, when we talk about gov't and politics, we talk about power. The pull that power has on people, the wealth that can be attained, and human greed. There are pros and cons to different types of gov'ts. Single decision makers can change directions quickly, get things done faster, but fail faster too. Democracies are made to be slow with checks and balances, but sometimes it's too slow, can't adapt quick enough, and just because there are more people doesn't make it immune to corruption.
There can be some reasonable arguments made for this to be the case. The future ruler could be educated in proper statesmanship, wouldn't have to pander to the masses, would arguably be more difficult to bribe, could focus on governing, etc.
But the failure mode of such a government seems to be much worse than a democracy's.
Similarly, we could just leave the current system alone except for one change: Pass laws requiring various media-flavored organizations to give equal airtime to every candidate. "Dear ESPN: If you want to operate in America, you must give each of these N candidates Y minutes of ads for free."
Strict campaign spending limits, ban tv advertising make all published literature have the candidates name or his/her agent and have the FCC mandate party political broadcasts.
I know that 31% is not insignificant but... it's not great either. If this was an incumbent, then there's probably a fair number of people who would've voted for _whoever_ the opposition candidate was.
See my other comment somewhere in this thread: IMO, the author got their arse kicked. I received 39%, didn't do nearly as much as the author, and I consider that a pretty solid defeat (but conveniently just shy of what I consider an arse kicking <g>). Somewhere there must be a study with hard numbers, but I figure X% just because I wasn't the other guy, Y% from voters who just randomly chose because they didn't really pay attention to the race, and 0.Z% from those that just screwed up the ballot. Leaving me with, I dunno, 20-25% who actually thought I was the better choice based on what they knew of me and the conversations we had. That's not a very good number. :-)
Not to take away from the main point, though. You want to run for office? You think you can do a better job? Then go do it. The barriers can be quite low for local offices, a bit higher for state offices. You'll get your arse kicked the first time around most likely. That's called "experience" and if you truly want to hold office, you'll be worlds ahead for next time. Most importantly, the vote is not a mandate on you as a person. I was soundly defeated, and that's fine: the people have spoken, and they said "come back in a few years when your better at this". Or they said, "the incumbent is doing a fine job, we see no reason to take a chance on someone new." But I never took it to be, "we just don't like you personally, mikestew."
One way to find the "X% you get for being the other candidate" is to look at the Florida State Rep results: http://enight.elections.myflorida.com/Offices/StateRepresent...
In two-candidate races without write-ins, the minimum that any candidate got was 18.22%, and from scanning the numbers it feels like the median is in mid-30%s.
//edit also if someone at a PAC is reading, what they should really do is an analysis comparing campaign funding vs. votes received. Find the candidates that are making the most impact with the least amount of money. The candidates you agree with are the people who need support next election, and the candidates you disagree with are the dark horses you need to watch out for.
OP was running for state office, not the local city council. 31% is quite good