Is the two party system dead

[Sean Renaud]

I'm not worried about anything you list happening... Bad enough as is.

If he ran third party, they may each get a third. I'd choose Bern over Hil, but the GOP only wins if they're the GOLF & the lowest % or IQ gets it.

Then your bad, and what bad actually mean are as different as what what bankrupt means and what Donald Trump is bankrupt means. Same word but not similarities.

If they each get a third then Congress elects Trump (or perhaps a REpublican of their choosing.) That's of course assuming the extremly unlikely case where he snatches a third of EV not a third of the actual votes mind you but a three way tie goes to the Republicans.

 

[Iceprincess12]

Then your bad, and what bad actually mean are as different as what what bankrupt means and what Donald Trump is bankrupt means. Same word but not similarities.

If they each get a third then Congress elects Trump (or perhaps a REpublican of their choosing.) That's of course assuming the extremly unlikely case where he snatches a third of EV not a third of the actual votes mind you but a three way tie goes to the Republicans.

The spelling/grammar nazi in me wants to correct your sentence, but I will wave and give you a hug instead

*wave*

Hug

 

[L1tTleD1fferent]

Was singing a song to myself last night/this AM after getting offline by Robbie Fulks.

Actual line: "Game score, Tea Party, World War, I don't give a good Goddamn."

Made me laugh... I'm a fan of lots of Oldies bands, but thought how much that song may prove to date itself eventually; Can't tell you last time I heard/read anything about Tea Party, let alone their candidates in this year's vote.

 

[ishtat]

Bernie is (and always has been) mostly talk. He hasn't even organized a single wet dream the whole time he's been in Congress. If he can't usurp somebody else's party, I don't see him doing any leading or party formation after this. And Elizabeth Warren is going to steal leadership on all of his positions if he has to fade back into the Congress. Agreed that the Democrats aren't in any danger as a party.

You've written 3 or 4 posts on this thread Pilot - all pretty much on the button - and all studiously ignored!

Getting Congress to work again is the biggest task of the next President. It won't be easy but I think she will manage it over time. My bet is that the Tea Party will suffer in the upcoming elections, and if they don't learn their lessons, they will face a GOP wipe out in the next mid terms.

Trump and Sanders - a blowhard and an idealogue; neither has any capacity to get people to do stuff.

 

[Real_American17]

My bracket system is still the best.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Your bracket idea is sheer madness. It's not even a particularly grand plan for sports. Without seeding the the candidates (impossible in your scenario) it's entirely plausible that the best candidates get knocked out early as Cali and New York slog it out and bums from Alaska who haven't the skill to manage a daycare much less a country effectivley get a by just for living in bumfuckingstan.

 

[Real_American17]

Your bracket idea is sheer madness. It's not even a particularly grand plan for sports. Without seeding the the candidates (impossible in your scenario) it's entirely plausible that the best candidates get knocked out early as Cali and New York slog it out and bums from Alaska who haven't the skill to manage a daycare much less a country effectivley get a by just for living in bumfuckingstan.

Why?

Each city and town will be competing to get into the county level, only the best will reach it, then only the best will reach the State level.

So the 50 best runners in the country can be further filtered until it's down to a top 10 or something.

Then it's just who ever gets the most votes becoming President and the second most votes becoming Vice-President.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Why?

Each city and town will be competing to get into the county level, only the best will reach it, then only the best will reach the State level.

So the 50 best runners in the country can be further filtered until it's down to a top 10 or something.

Then it's just who ever gets the most votes becoming President and the second most votes becoming Vice-President.

Except that's not really how reality functions. The best will make you hope but just differences in population and education make that unlikely. And that's forgetting the time constraints.

And we eliminated that first and second place for a reason. Turned out having the top two dogs actively working against each other was simply untenable.

 

[L1tTleD1fferent]

You've written 3 or 4 posts on this thread Pilot - all pretty much on the button - and all studiously ignored!

Getting Congress to work again is the biggest task of the next President. It won't be easy but I think she will manage it over time. My bet is that the Tea Party will suffer in the upcoming elections, and if they don't learn their lessons, they will face a GOP wipe out in the next mid terms.

Trump and Sanders - a blowhard and an idealogue; neither has any capacity to get people to do stuff.

You're 100% right on Trump, & largely wrong on Sanders.

I also agree on the biggest task of the next President... Except I think most candidates (& public) realize we are more likely to thaw cryogenically-frozen dinos than get that to ever happen. Also, I would be OK but doubt next POTUS being female.

 

[Real_American17]

Except that's not really how reality functions. The best will make you hope but just differences in population and education make that unlikely. And that's forgetting the time constraints.

How much time do you think it would take a single city/town to select it's winner?

How long for a single county? A single State?

Because all the towns/cities will be happening at the same time, all the counties will be at the same time.

And we eliminated that first and second place for a reason. Turned out having the top two dogs actively working against each other was simply untenable.

But the top two more accurately represent the People's choice.

 

[Sean Renaud]

How much time do you think it would take a single city/town to select it's winner?

How long for a single county? A single State?

Because all the towns/cities will be happening at the same time, all the counties will be at the same time.

But the top two more accurately represent the People's choice.

Realistically speaking? 90 days for a city and that's probably being generous. And there are currently 3000 counties in the US. Broken into overly large brackets of 20 that's 150 different races once it boils down to the county level.

And 20 is too many. One of the obvious points we learned the last two go arounds (2012 and 2016) with the Republicans is that 10 people cannot effectively have a debate. Some people get asked more questions out the gate, assuming you have a response rule like we do now someone might simply get mentioned more often. Hell even if you magically worked it out evenly a two hour debate (which is about the limit of what you can ask people to sit without losing focus in most cases is 120 minutes. That gives 10 candiates 12 minutes apiece. (This is magic socialist land where greedy investors get no part in the process and thus no commercials. I know that would make you sick to your stomach but it makes my math easier and your plan more absurd.) 12 minutes assuming the questions are pre-asked (so no moderator speakinng at all.) and the candidates magically start talking the precise second the other stops with zero crossover at all you're talking 12 questions. TWELVE.

You're not going to get to know these people. At all.

You're also sorely mistaken that this would more accurately reflect the people's opinion. Bernie Sanders isn't from my city, county, or state. He could very well get knocked out long before I have any say in it whatsoever. Hell I'm not even likely to hear about it. To say nothing of someone just getting knocked out via sheer dumb luck.

And all the cities and counties cannot possibly happen at the same time. There are simply too many cities, some of which are counties in and of themselves.

 

[Real_American17]

Realistically speaking? 90 days for a city and that's probably being generous. And there are currently 3000 counties in the US. Broken into overly large brackets of 20 that's 150 different races once it boils down to the county level.

So after all the towns/cities are finished in 90 days, the winners will move to their respective counties, which will result in 3,000 winners moving to their respective States.

So Each State will on average be choosing it's candidate to move to the national level from 60 runners.

One out of sixty will move to a regional level, so 4 in 50 will move to national level.

From those 4 top runners, the first place becomes Prez and the second place becomes Vice-Prez.

 

[Sean Renaud]

So Each State will on average be choosing it's candidate to move to the national level from 60 runners.

One out of sixty will move to a regional level, so 4 in 50 will move to national level.

From those 4 top runners, the first place becomes Prez and the second place becomes Vice-Prez.

Which again isn't remotely fair to states like California and New York. Being one of the best 60 people from Wyoming with a population of 596,107 vs being one of the best 60 from Texas with a population of 27 million is bullshit.

And again we cannot have opposing Pres and VP it's been tried and all it leads to is more gridlock and we've got too much of that.

And again narrowing it down to 60 is going to take forever. Look how long it's taking us to narrow down from 20 something between two parties!

 

[Real_American17]

Which again isn't remotely fair to states like California and New York. Being one of the best 60 people from Wyoming with a population of 596,107 vs being one of the best 60 from Texas with a population of 27 million is bullshit.

Why?

Anyway, what if the number of candidates each State could send to the regional level matched their representation in Congress?

And again we cannot have opposing Pres and VP it's been tried and all it leads to is more gridlock and we've got too much of that.

Fine, then winner picks his VP.

And again narrowing it down to 60 is going to take forever. Look how long it's taking us to narrow down from 20 something between two parties!

How long do you think the People need to make their choice? How long do they need to watch debates, rallies, town hall meetings, etc. before they can pull the curtain and press a button?

The State winners would move forward to a region: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/USFederalRegions.svg

This map has 10 regions, others have 5, 4, etc.

 

[Sean Renaud]

If you don't understand why in a system that claims to be a meritocracy having to compete with more people for less is bullshit I can't help you. It's the same reason the country is rigged against CA and NY (oh yeah and TX) we should all have a LOT more votes than we do both for president and in Congress.

How long do people need? Long enough to ask them all the important questions. Which I would argue is probably no less than 6 hours per candidate. That map is decent. . .for geography. I'm not an Alaska fan but forcing the land of Sarah Palin to battle through Oregon and Washington who have little culturally incommon with them is at best stacking the deck.

On your map Regions 7 and 8 combine probably aren't on par with CA population wise.

And again what do you din the very real case here where Hillary knocks Trump out in R1?

 

[Real_American17]

On your map Regions 7 and 8 combine probably aren't on par with CA population wise.

But when it comes to the regional winners competing for national victory, each individual State will matter less.

It won't be CA's candidate, it will be the candidate for Region IX.

And again what do you din the very real case here where Hillary knocks Trump out in R1?

Well, that's the Region I candidate then, let's hope one of the other 9 candidates is better and wins.

Also, that isn't a final map... hell maybe we could ignore the states, have local, county, sub-regional, regional, and national.

The sub-regional and regional could ignore State lines and be a better way of insuring roughly equal populations. Of course they would need to be constantly updated as populations change... or at least updated every-X-elections.

 

[Sean Renaud]

But when it comes to the regional winners competing for national victory, each individual State will matter less.

It won't be CA's candidate, it will be the candidate for Region IX.

Well, that's the Region I candidate then, let's hope one of the other 9 candidates is better and wins.

Also, that isn't a final map... hell maybe we could ignore the states, have local, county, sub-regional, regional, and national.

The sub-regional and regional could ignore State lines and be a better way of insuring roughly equal populations. Of course they would need to be constantly updated as populations change... or at least updated every-X-elections.

No they won't. They still matter FAR and away more. Even worse than they are now.

I don't honestly believe any variation on this particular plan is truly viable. Nor do I honestly believe this would really lead to more than two parties so much as it would lead towards very very specific campaigns designed to knock off certain areas that could be problematic. Assuming that CA votes for it's hometown hero we're gonna sweep regionals. We're gonna sweep each and every year until we run into Texas and the South, as will NY. Assuming we use any geography that makes sense NY vs CA will virtually never happen. One of us will drag TX through the dirty and the other will kick over the corpse. No part of this plan is great.

You want multiple parties? There are two VERY simple ways to do this. Fusion Ballots and/or run off voting. Both solve the problem immediately with little fuss. The primary obstacle being the Republicans and Democrats have little reason whatsoever to to allow a switch to take place. They (Republicans more so than Dems) stand to lose a LOT more in such a change but the reality is they both stand to lose too much to stand idly by and let it happen.

 

[Real_American17]

Assuming that CA votes for it's hometown hero we're gonna sweep regionals.

But they still have to give their candidate more votes than any of the other nine...

If any candidate can pull enough regions to vote for him, they can win.

I don't understand Fusion: http://workingfamilies.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Whatisfusion.pdf

Which one is Runoff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runoff_voting

 

[Sean Renaud]

But they still have to give their candidate more votes than any of the other nine...

If any candidate can pull enough regions to vote for him, they can win.

I don't understand Fusion: http://workingfamilies.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Whatisfusion.pdf

Which one is Runoff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runoff_voting

Which we most likely would. Assuming MOST people vote for the winner of their state CA wins every single time. We have the most people. It's like the Pirate Council in Pirates of the Carribean. The only way someone wins is if someone goes against their self interest. Except in this case it's a LOT of people going to spite us.

Interesting links and congrats on doing the leg work. However you are always allowed to simply ask someone to explain themselves friend. Most of us have little issue.

Fusion ballots is something that would happen at the party level. As it stands now you are the Democrat or Republican candidate. You are not the Socialist or Libertarian right? Despite say Rand Paul being a libertarian and Bernie Sanders being a Socialist. They both come to the big teams to play when it counts.

Under Fusion ballots the Democrats could CHOOSE to back Bernie Sanders, and so could the Socialists. And so could the Green Party. And given his current record lets say the NRA (not a political party but bear with me) decides to back him. Voila, you're now running as the candidate for four separate parties.

What this really accomplishesis breaks up the strangle hold the two parties have of really being a coalition of guys AGAINST the other guy. There is no particularly logical reason why Big Business and Big Religion are on the same team (and lots of reasons they should loathe eachother) just not as much as the socialists. There is likewise little reason why Equal Rights actiivates give a shit about the environment. Giving them more agency to move as groups would be huge.

All of those are different kinds of run offs and I don't personally have a favorite. The deal there is we could hold the election NOW. And lets take me for example. I'd vote Bernie Sanders first. If he makes it to 50% GREAT. I win no more work. When he doesn't however whoever is losing gets bumped off for the sake of argument Bernie comes in third behind Trump and Hillary. Now everybody's who voted for Bernie (and anybody else who lost) goes to their second choice. And we keep doing that until there is a winner.

The advantage here is that a lot of us are hesitant to vote Bernie. Not because we don't think he would be a good choice but because we don't tihnk he could beat Trump. And when it comes to third parties voting third party generally just puts the guy you hate in office since you OTHERWISE would have voted for the shinier turd. Now I can vote for the guy I want to win and the guy I think CAN win.

 

[L1tTleD1fferent]

The advantage here is that a lot of us are hesitant to vote Bernie. Not because we don't think he would be a good choice but because we don't tihnk he could beat Trump.

And because you can't even spell the same word right through a whole sentence. Not to mention you refer to yourself as though your a group.

Earlier today, I read an "editorial" in a semi-recent Rolling Stone explaining why Hilary was the best choice... A newer issue of the same mag whose cover-story interview with Bernie had me more-assured of my pre-read choice to back him. The editorial was well-written, except for the fact that 90% of it was not facts. [Sorry; I don't get much of my news from newspapers, but I get more of it from Stone than "The (post-Stewart) Daily Show", so I trust them/it to tell me things I could tell others or use on "Jeopardy" that are proven true.]

 

[Sean Renaud]

I'm sorry I missed your point entirely.

 

[Real_American17]

Which we most likely would. Assuming MOST people vote for the winner of their state CA wins every single time. We have the most people. It's like the Pirate Council in Pirates of the Carribean. The only way someone wins is if someone goes against their self interest. Except in this case it's a LOT of people going to spite us.

What if CA and the other mega-population States counted as their own regions, that would even things up with the collective populations of the other multi-State regions.

Fusion ballots is something that would happen at the party level.

So how does a single candidate running under several parties make things better?

Wouldn't that be even less choice? More parties but less candidates...

All of those are different kinds of run offs and I don't personally have a favorite. The deal there is we could hold the election NOW. And lets take me for example. I'd vote Bernie Sanders first. If he makes it to 50% GREAT. I win no more work. When he doesn't however whoever is losing gets bumped off for the sake of argument Bernie comes in third behind Trump and Hillary. Now everybody's who voted for Bernie (and anybody else who lost) goes to their second choice. And we keep doing that until there is a winner.

So do you vote for a first, second, and third choice once or do you get a new vote each time?

If everyone votes and Bernie comes in 3rd, does everyone that voted Bernie get a second vote?

 

[L1tTleD1fferent]

I'm sorry I missed your point entirely.

No apologies necessary. You admit to having missed it (so I don't have to say so), & that a point was made.

 

[sr71plt]

And because you can't even spell the same word right through a whole sentence. Not to mention you refer to yourself as though your a group.

I love it when this happens.

 

[Sean Renaud]

What if CA and the other mega-population States counted as their own regions, that would even things up with the collective populations of the other multi-State regions.

So how does a single candidate running under several parties make things better?

Wouldn't that be even less choice? More parties but less candidates...

So do you vote for a first, second, and third choice once or do you get a new vote each time?

If everyone votes and Bernie comes in 3rd, does everyone that voted Bernie get a second vote?

Cali as it's own region would be a start.

A single candidate running under several parties allows the parties to exist separately. It would in all likelihood lead to the exact same amount of candidates at the end of the day (two) where the huge change would be would be that the Democrats and Republicans would be much smaller. How many people do you know who really fit cleanly into either of the two existing true parties? Right now both parties exist largely as a "fuck the other guy" club more so than a coherent group.

You vote (x) times all at once. For the sake of this my ballot would be like this if we had to go to five..

1. Bernie Sanders.
2. Hillary Clinton
3. Kasich
4. Cruz
5. Trump

No apologies necessary. You admit to having missed it (so I don't have to say so), & that a point was made.

It's probably because there wasn't one.

There are lots of different ways to decide what happens. But someone has to pass 50%. The simplest in small enough election would be knock off the bottom guy. So lets say these were the results.

Trump: 30%
Hillary: 30%
Sanders: 20
Cruz: 15
Kasich: 5

Kasich gets bumped off. Anybody who voted for him FIRST now goes to their second choice. Now we have.

Trump: 30%
Hillary: 35%
Sanders: 25%
Cruz: 15%

Well now anybody voted Cruz first or second gets bumped.

Trump : 30%
Hilary:50% WINNER!
Sanders: 25%

The numbers are pulled entirely out of my ass for the sake of explaining the process not an expectation of how the votes would actually go.

In this system again my voting for Bernie isn't a vote AGAINST Hillary or for Trump. It's a genuine statement. We can observe other nations to see other methods of forming a multiparty government but the problem seems to clearly be in our process more than our politics. Our process forces it because if Hillary and Bernie split the Dems 50/50 that's 25% of the WHOLE pie and Trump wins. So simply strategically speaking (and yes politics is in no small part strategy) I'm not voting for a third party.