[clue-talk] McCain suggests raiding Colorado's water

[Richard Knechtel]

Yup, now it's the Democrats and the Republicans that are the problem.... Go
figure.. History DOES repeat itself.

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 8:42 AM, <dennisjperkins at comcast.net> wrote:

>
>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com>
> > David L. Willson wrote:
> > > I refuse to answer a top-post that follows a bottom-post, or
> vice-versa, but
> > if I didn't
> > > refuse, I'd agree with Angelo and Richard.  A third candidate is a
> third
> > candidate.
> > > Saying that a third candidate is a spoiler... Well, isn't that a little
> like
> > saying that
> > > Linux is a spoiler?
> >
> > I'm not so sure.  There's been a lot of real mathematics to show that
> > the current voting system DOES have spoilers.
> >
> > Various voting methods that WEIGHT the candidates have been proposed
> > (and used successfully for voting for other things, but not people in
> > U.S. political elections) that take into account the individual voter's
> > preferences in an ORDER -- so that if they want to vote for a 3rd party
> > candidate, but that candidate doesn't have enough votes to win, your
> > votes still "count" in some way for the winning candidate.
> >
> > Plus add in that really it's the Electoral College that's voting and not
> > the popular vote (right or wrong, I'm not getting into that debate) that
> > decides who the President is... there's some math to be done there too,
> > obviously.  In fact, the two major parties definitely know this and
> > campaign accordingly.
> >
> > The more population moves away from the coasts and inland, the more
> > difficult it becomes to mess with elections via the Electoral College,
> > in my view.  But, IANAM.*
> >
> > I think there's PLENTY of reasons to believe the common-sense knowledge
> > that voting for a third-party candidate can screw the person you might
> > OTHERWISE want in office, out of the job.
> >
> > Plus, "common-sense" is often very very right.
> >
> > I have met very few people who can tell me that voting for a third-party
> > candidate feels right when they do a "gut-check" on whether or not it
> > will mess with the real winners.
> >
> > And I don't think the country is (yet?) at a stage where a landslide for
> > a 3rd party will happen.  (Someday, maybe?  Not this election season,
> > though.  Common sense also tells me that both McCain and Obama have
> > *enough* support that no landslide toward a 3d party is going to happen.)
> >
> > So with all of the above... logically, voting for a 3rd party is almost
> > a guarantee to mess with the numbers for the only two possible winners
> > in a modern Presidential election.
> >
> > (As far as local elections go, there are and have been 3rd party
> > candidates that CAN and HAVE won elections... but it's not happening for
> > President this go-around, and probably won't in my lifetime unless
> > conditions for the average person get so bad they vote for a 3rd party
> > out of total frustration.)
> >
> > Nate
> >
> > *I am not a Mathematician.
> > _______________________________________________
>
> Weren't the Republicans originally spoilers?  This country had the
> Democratic and Whig parties.
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