Wow, am I ever bad at writing this thing. Blame the lack of comments. It seems like the biggest thing drawing me back is when I get spammers targetting my blog so I have to moderate the comments. Yuck! Oh well. I suppose you can’t have millions of items of spam and not get something worthwhile out of it. Kinda like even governments don’t spend billions without getting something out of it. (Spam and governments share the trait of being phenomenally inefficient, though thankfully, at least spam doesn’t intrude on my life every time I want to do something.)
This isn’t my ramble-about-spam blog though, it’s about the political economy. So today’s issue, and at the rate I update things this month’s issue, is going to be Libertarian Bob Smither.
It’s just a few days left to election day. We’re right on the brink, standing on the edge, staring into the abyss. (Let’s get it over with before the abyss stares back! Eh… I think I’ll just stick to political commentary, literature references aren’t my thing.) Most third party candidates aren’t looking to be anything better than spoilers and that sort of thing. It’s rare that a libertarian candidate has a good shot in elections, especially to such high office as Congress. Bob Smither has exactly that shot. The reason isn’t even his own politics (though he’s well-known for his charity work). It’s the fact that the Republicans managed to get their candidate barred by Texas electoral law, while Mr. Smither managed to secure access on the ballot for the Libertarian Party and himself.
Now, Libertarians on the ballot usually draw 10-15% of the popular vote. It’s enough to be a serious threat to the other party and enough to make Libertarians taken more seriously in the long run, though never enough to win. Write-in candidates have never been taken seriously in Texas though. Not a single one has ever won. So now for the Republicans, the shoe is on the other foot, and they’re struggling with what we’ve struggled for years. People are seriously considering voting strategically – for the Libertarian candidate!
Strategic voting is a generally evil thing that when practiced widely enough to influence elections leads to much higher Bayesian Regret than necessary. So it is both extroardinarily ironic and slightly sad that we now depend on the very thing which has for a long time artificially deflated our vote totals, falsely discreditted our beliefs, and generally kept us out of office. Perhaps this will be the perfect opportunity to push an agenda for Ranged Voting.
Regardless, the one thing that is eminently clear and very sad about the whole affair is that the Republicans are trying to use every trick they’ve got to push their candidate. They would rather have a liberal Democrat than a conservative Libertarian, in spite of the fact that Mr. Smither has promised to vote organizationally for Republican speakers and feels a lot of sympathy with the Goldwater contingent of the Republicans. So now it looks like a Republican may act as spoiler for a Libertarian. Ah, how the tables have turned! Sadly, I can’t enjoy it. I’d rather that our parties worked together than against each other. This bitter enmity is a necessary element of Plurality voting though. Ranged Voting would make for a simultaneously much more congenial and yet diverse political debate. I hope Bob Smither will endorse Ranged Voting. (Approval Voting would work too.)
I don’t have an axe, really. I just found the excellent site, www.RangeVoting.org and figured I might be able to get some mention outside the confines of this blog by supporting Bob Smither. This in turn I figured I might be able to use to promote a very Libertarian idea at the same time, and possibly sway a few people.
