Well, this is a fine mess. Michigan moved its primary up and the Democratic Party did not like that, ruling that delegates from the state would not be accepted. So nobody from the Dem side is campaigning in Michigan and I believe the only Dem candidates on the ballot are Clinton and Hervé Villechaize.
The Republican side at least is having a real contest, with Romney and McCain neck and neck, Huckabee in third. The storylines have been beaten to death; Romney's last stand, McCain straight-talking about jobs never coming back, Huckabee calling for mandatory vacation bible school ... made that last one up ...
RCP reports that Romney is getting a last minute surge, so maybe he'll pull this one off. If he does, the fine mess continues, with no clear front runner on the R side. I do think that Michigan's open primary, like New Hampshire's, gives McCain an advantage, because it allows Dems and Independents to come in and vote for McCain. If this was a straight-up contest for Republican voters, I think Romney would win a solid majority. But with so many independents coming in to vote for McCain, he could very well pull it off.
Which brings up another issue that contributes to Michigan's status as the Silliest Primary. Daily Kos and a few other sites are encouraging Dems in Michigan to vote for Romney!! Their reasoning is that anything that keeps the R side fractured and bickering amongst themselves is good for the D side.
This is not the first time that one side has tried to influence the other side. R's have done this sort of thing before, as Kos is quick to point out. And there's certainly nothing illegal about D's voting for an R candidate (again, open primary). I believe that most candidates are in favor of getting people's votes, no matter what those voters call themselves.
But it's petty and dumb, and I wish that Kos would cut it out. Not that it matters what I think.
So far my predictions have been mostly wrong. But I am garunteeing a Clinton win in Michigan. Hervé just did not have a good ground game.
On the Republican side, my gut tells me McCain will win again. But my left elbow, always my favorite joint, is telling me that Romney is going squeeze by with narrow victory.
So: 1. Romney, 2. McCain, 3. Muckabee
3 comments:
It's petty and dumb, yes...but the system is dumb for allowing it. That is, because the system encourages votes as complex strategies rather than straightforward expression of approval, of course some people (with or without encouragement) will use it that way. And it's the 50-percent-plus-one, winner-take-all system that does that. I could blather on about this...but, uh, it's your blog, so you get to do that!
So I'm guessing you'd approve of instant run-off voting? I believe MN has been playing around with that idea a little, or maybe it was just one of the Metro counties... can't remember. Seems like a reasonable idea to me.
Would you have voted for Romney if that scenario had played out in your home state? Or to put it another way, can you see a scenario where you'd vote strategically rather than for the person you actually want to win?
To be totally honest I could see myself doing that, but only if there was a really compelling reason. I guess the Kos strategy just didn't seem worth it to me. And I didn't feel comfortable with his "Republicans do it so we can too" rationale.
In any case, it looks like few D voters crossed over to the R side, and I would guess most of those voted for McCain or perhaps Paul. I think Kos was mostly just trying to have some fun.
Yep - I'm a long-time IRV fan. There are logistical issues to be ironed out, to be sure. Actually, I think more of a parliamentary system is a good idea, too: there's a huge range of ideology in this country, but only a sliver's width of it gets represented. And of course, that lack of representation itself narrows the range.
As for the "strategic voting" thing: I think in WI you can't vote for both a Democrat and a Republican in the same race...so unless there was no good reason to vote for anyone on the D side, I'd be unlikely to cast a strategic Republican vote. (I'd be very unlikely to cast a Republican vote as such: I voted for John Anderson in the '80 primary, but he might already have been an independent at the time...and at any rate, 1980 is like another planet compared to now.
However, while my political positions were certainly closer to Ralph Nader's than to any of the candidates around him in the main election, I never voted for him...it was too obvious that doing so would essentially cast a vote for the candidate I most opposed. And that's the main flaw with our system: you end up voting lesser-of-two-evils, even if there's a candidate you like, because there's just no way a third-party candidate is likely to win...and even if they were to win, they'd be unlikely to be able to govern effectively, given the entrenchment of parties in the system. This is particularly true for an independent who was a former D or R - since that means the candidate's former party is likely to have a lot of resentment against the ex-member.
Geez, I do blather on...
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