Since the honeymoon of the Obama administration came to an end, which was maybe a month or so after inauguration, I have become wildly disappointed in my country’s political format. That is probably because I never really had any expectations since my politically conscious life began (I am 26 as of the date of this entry so 2008 was only my second presidential election I could vote in). But after the momentum of Obama’s win in 2008 for the first time since I had started following politics I felt like good common sense and collective caring about our fate and each other might actually prevail. Things didn’t quite turn out that way. Apparently, even though a majority of country wanted this man in office so he could do his thing and set the country and world straight, there were plenty of people who just wanted to defame him and keep the focus away from the essence of any important issue and focus on less sensible things. Between Fox News and the contagion of ignorant or intentionally distracting people across the conversation the country went astray. From birthers, to death panels, to anything Sarah Palin (a woman who probably doesn’t have the resume to qualify for a reputable grad school) talks about, we missed the point which is how to make anything better. The intent of the opposition was wonderfully satirized by the Onion (what isn’t) in this article http://www.theonion.com/articles/my-constituents-care-way-more-about-political-game,16887/.
I still can’t fully blame Obama even though he led the Democrats as they squandered “the largest majority any party has seen in decades.” It was more a matter of him having a false belief that the moral high ground would help him past the kind of opposition he was going to face. He was prepared to debate any real topic with anyone, but miscalculated how many false rumors he would have to stomp out before he could get to the topic at hand which by then was old news and didn’t matter. He probably didn’t have a good core of politically experienced savvy game players in his circle, which is his fault, and he completely lost control of voice of the Democratic Party where somehow all of them came out looking incompetent. And overall that was a bit naive of him and I should probably treat him more harshly for not playing political games as well, but my conscience says that's not a good reason to disapprove of someone. We can, however, definitely blame the republicans who have yet to propose any useful legislation in the last two and a half years.
But more than either of the two parties we can blame the media driven political system that we’re currently enrolled in. One that leaves only two options, pick between the “I like to think I have a conscience, but like most people there is a lot of confusion in how best to express it” party and the “I don’t care about having a conscience because there are more important things at stake” party or relegate yourself to a simple life where you don’t fancy yourself no politics. None of these options really seem that appealing do they? Especially not after I slandered them. So assuming we’re not taking the final option, which is really the better choice for the weak stomached and anyone who has any regard for personal sanity, it is my belief that it might be a good idea to alter the two party system as it is what is truly to blame for the congestion. After all, politicians just play the hand they are dealt under the rules of the game that they are playing. Some suggest that the two party system is entrenched and there is no way to uproot it. I, for some unknown reason, am a little more hopeful than that. The way to start this process is to alter our election voting format.
Historically, and never more so than in the 2000 presidential election, votes for third party candidates are considered a waste. Voting for Ralph Nader in 2000 was largely considered a huge mistake in the mind of progressive individuals that wanted real change. While Nader seemed like the high reward pick, ultimately that decision to vote for Nader instead of Al Gore was viewed as allowing George W. Bush to gain more votes relative to Gore and win the election. That high cost of attempted progress by having Bush win the election was not considered worth it. The mistake was highly publicized and has not been repeated again in any major elections that I am aware of. Here is Michael Moore endorsing Nader in 2000: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkE75uN-yMs (introduced at the 40:20 mark), and here is Mr. Moore flip-flopping and literally begging Nader not to run as an independent in 2004 in the race between Bush and Kerry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RysZy331YK0 (the whole discussion is good, but the begging is at the 3:50 mark). The ultimate effect of Nader's 2000 campaign is that it even more so solidifies our two party system. Nader did not change his politics in those four year, it was the view on third party candidates that had changed. I know when I’m in the voting booth I will often just choose the candidate that has the same party affiliation as me, because I know I don’t want the other party to win. But only in the rarest of cases will I ever pick a third party candidate. That practically requires me knowing the candidate personally. I've heard many express their disgust with our political system and both the Democrats and Republicans describing the whole situation as voting for the lesser of two evils. Is that how democracy is supposed to work? Or should we be able to vote for a candidate that we like, or that we actually believe in and not have it be automatically considered a losing strategy. Fortunately, someone has invented a system that cures this to a degree.
The system is called the instant-runoff voting (IRV) system which is explained more thoroughly here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting. In brief, it has voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no majority is reached after all the first preference votes are counted, then votes cast to the candidate who received the least number of votes are redistributed to candidate preferred second most on that vote. The process is repeated until someone gets a majority of the votes. Ultimately the voting system leads to the candidate that is considered tolerable by a majority of the voters winning the election. This system or a similar preferential style voting system is successfully used in India, France, Finland, Ireland, Australia and in US cities of San Francisco Oakland, and Minneapolis and St. Paul, so it does have some street cred.
I will now play out a dumbed down version of the 2000 election under IRV under the presumption that those voters who voted for Nader would have preferred Gore to Bush. After the first round of votes are counted Gore and Bush are tied with 49% of the votes, and Nader has garnered 2%. No majority has been reached. The votes for the candidate who garnered the least number first preference votes, here Nader, are redistributed to whoever the second preference was on each ballot, which here we're presuming is Gore (this is also assuming there were enough people in Florida who actually voted for Nader, I’m not looking at the actual numbers. This is a dumbed down scenario (even if it is contradictory to the blog title)). So Nader is eliminated, and Gore gains that 2% as the Nader voters would have preferred Gore second putting him at 51%, a majority, and he is declared the winner. Those who voted for Nader aren’t totally pleased because their guy didn’t win, but at least they didn’t end up with the worst case scenario, and probably more importantly they wouldn't be completely dissuaded from voting for Nader again in the next election. The moral of the story is not that Gore would have won (I've moved on), it's that the country did not select the candidate that a majority of the country did not want.
My long term hope is that this system will allow for more third party candidates, who aren’t pinned to party obligations, to have a voice in the conversation. They can be the other opinion that calls out the shit being thrown back and forth by the other two parties in congress. Votes toward third party candidates will no longer be considered thrown away, because they come with insurance, insurance that protects you from allowing the intolerable candidate to sneak in because you voted with your heart and not what is dubbed as the lesser of two evils which essentially means a cog in a political system that is proving itself more incapable to react to current real world problems each day. I know that I would feel differently about third party candidates if I was in the booth with an IRV system in place. Hell, I would be tempted to just vote for independents to get rid of whatever is there and mix things up. This means supporting the Naders of the world but it will help the Tea Party and Libertarian movements as well as they won't feel obligated to run as a Republican because they know that's the only way they can win. You could have Ron Paul running for the Libertarian Party, against a Democrat and someone in the Republican Party, and voters who like Ron Paul the most and any other Republican second can cast a ballot that properly expresses that.
Altering the system is a difficult task considering how many people are afraid of something that is labeled change. I think it is something that will have to continue being built at the city and state level to build momentum. And the politicians who have their major party obligations wouldn’t seem especially keen on it. But I think that there are enough people who are really upset with the gridlock of the two party system that this is a cause that could really gain some push if California or any other state adopted it, which could be as simple as a people's proposition during the next election. People are sick and tired of having to chose between two crappy options for very important decisions like who is going to run our country. Regardless of whether we have the power to make this happen, I think this has to be the first step toward a long term fix to our current government ineptitude is reforming our elections to have votes cast and counted under the IRV system. This won’t turn the whole country upside down, but it will gradually over time allow different and valid views to make their way into government with some momentum. All ideas are not easily divided into two groups, but that is currently the only option we are dealt. This will add a third hand to the poker table, so we can stop spending most of our time hating the one other opponent and arguing that my king-high hand is better than your king-high hand even though both of us make most of our decisions based on party and donor obligations anyway. Under IRV there will always be someone to call someone's bluff, and we can get past the lies and politics, push through a polarizing media, and mix up this stale government a little. It will be slow progress (which technically is what a conservative is supposed to be about) but it will restore a little faith that the system isn’t broken and that there are other options. Conversations should become more intelligent, less hateful, and could really open up other avenues of political ideas and compromise to free up some of this god forsaken 'can't let the opponent get anything done because that hurts us' defensive gridlock.
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