Melissa wrote on Oct 1^st, 2008 at 9:31am:


Absolutely.

But the two major parties have discovered that they can utilize strong third-party candidates to assure the election of their own candidate.  Here's how:

Directly or indirectly supporting or contributing to a strong third-party candidate who is philosophically closer to the opposition candidate can split the vote for the opposition major-party candidate, resulting in a plurality that favors one's own candidate.  It's actually more effective than raising one's own candidate a couple of ticks in the polls.

Campaign folks have taken this into account--it's how you get oddities like Republican-leaning contributors donating to the campaign of Ralph Nader, or Democrat-leaning contributors contributing to the candidacy of Ron Paul.  Not saying there's anything bad or particularly unexpected about this--just that it's a factor.  

For more on this, and a proposed method of creating a fairer and more representative election process, see William Poundstone's book--"Gaming the Vote".  It's a bit mathematical, but very interesting and enlightening.

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

Best,

George    

Things have got to change.

The fact that that damn bill was voted down on Monday gives me hope.  It's a teeny tiny start.

wildhaus wrote on Oct 1^st, 2008 at 1:48pm:

Michael, the fact it was NOT voted in, WAS actually representative of the American people.  We did not want to bail out these investment banks who made bad decisions for their companies and our representatives were flooded with phone calls and emails telling them NOT to vote it in.

Basically, it was a bad bill and it did not address the root of the problem, which, on top of many things, had to do with the falling home prices in the housing market coupled by forclosures.  (correct me anyone if I'm wrong)

I could go into how the federal government shouldn't even be involved in this whole mess, but I won't...