faethor said:
FluffyMcDeath said:
Ross Perot was able to BUY media attention and was able to do amazingly well considering.
No he didn't do well. He got 0 electorial votes. The same amount I got and I didn't have to spend millions.
But he got over 18% of the popular vote which is an astounding accomplishment in the "two party system". It also demonstrates a big problem with winner take all.
20% of the population (1 in 5) were so compelled to vote Perot that they may have been dragged away from their usual brand to do it. In the end 20% of the people lack representation. On the other hand, all the people who didn't vote for the eventual winner do not have representation. In general, under this system when there is more than a two way split over half the people do not have representation, i.e. the system fails the majority of people. That's a rather sobering result.
Having found that even being 1 in 5 gives no effective representation, it becomes harder over time for people to stop voting against a candidate that they dislike than to vote for that which they want.
[quote:3i5wlrcu] The candidates that you get to vote for get pre-approved for you.
To be fair there is an election process where people do have input on which of the selections will become the pre-approved candidate. [/quote:3i5wlrcu]
To some extent, but the two top parties are both run by and for the top tier of society. The only people who have real time to be politically active are the youth, the pensioners and the investing classes (or the landed gentry, i.e. those that live off of rent either on land or capital). The youth advocate for issues of education generally, but many just party. The pensioners advocate for all sorts of things but many of them have lower energy, are unwell, live in fear and poverty on inadequate funds and will soon go away. The investing classes have all day every day to work the politicians and political process to make sure that their investments remain lucrative - and that's what they do.
The rest of the people are too busy working to be politically active. The more jobs they have to work to stay afloat, the better, because they'll have less time to "make trouble". The more tired they are at the end of the day, the better. Dull their pain and minds with some banal TV and they'll be completely vegetative and ineffective. And the TV is the biggest influencer in modern times. Instead of talking to neighbours and discussing things, you can get your opinions given to you by TV. TV can distort the mood of the country, because even though everyone else may disagree with the talking heads, if they are the only thing you hear you start to think that's what everyone thinks, and you feel compelled to conform so as to fit in. Don't agree with the talking heads? Then you're a "Liberal" - or in Scientology, a "Repressive Person".
The investing classes have the time, money and power to run the parties and they do. They also own the media. Much of what people learn about the candidates is what the media tells them, and how the media says it. And when you get to the party selection process, it's always the old party guard that decides how it is to proceed. The party can decide who speaks in the candidates debate. The party can decide what the voting procedures will be. The party can cancel events that seem to be heading inthe wrong direction by favouring the wrong candidate. Delegates who support the wrong candidates can find themselves banned from venues or harassed in other ways or misdirected. It happens in the public elections but it happens in party elections too.
As to how Obama came to be the candidate for the Dems... I'm still unsure. Was there really so much momentum that the party couldn't control the outcome? Or was there so much momentum and the party realized how useful this could be provided that Obama would cut a deal to be a "good boy"? Definately, to get this far you have to cut a lot of deals. Obama is a very savvy guy. He can't go this far just on populism. What I find interesting is that a large chunk of the people with the power seem to have switched parties. What's on offer, or do they simply see that the old GOP brand is so tarnished that there's no point sticking with it any more.
