Sun 8 Jun 2008
Election-as-human-nature-barometer: Imagine a two-party system where, during the primaries, you had to vote for the party that you were NOT a registered member of. So, if you’re a republican, you get to pick the democratic candidate.
Assume that people are actually registered in the party that most closely aligns with their values. Now, would this cross-party system improve the whole affair (individuals would realize that they’re choosing the “enemy’s team,” would pick the person that they truly think would be the better choice), or would it make things worse (individuals would pick the person most likely to lose the election for the other side)?
Posted by James Bickers2 answers so far!
I think people would tend to choose the “best of the worst” option–who is the most palatable of the guys I don’t like–until the first election where one party deliberately chooses the batshitinsane guy from the other party to guarantee their own win…after that, each subsequent election would be a race to the bottom.
I’m not sure of the answer, but you should be able to model this and test it. It would be a cool Prisoner’s Dilemma sort of experiment. Maybe it’s already been done.