voting strategically

[cellio]

I've been thinking about this November's election, and the presumption that PA is a swing state and That Matters, and voting for the lesser plausible evil versus voting one's conscience. I started to write about this in comments in someone else's journal (where it was arguably off-topic), so I figured I should bring it here.
Most of the time we

Comments

[byronhaverford]

I completely agree with the philsophy of voting for the candidate you like best, regardless of party backing, and I use exactly the same logic you have outlined.

Having said that, do you really feel that the Libertarian candidate, if elected, would do a better job of running the country? I don't mean theoretically, based on his political posture; I mean practically, given the existing political infrastructure. If you can answer "yes", then by all means, vote for him.

Remember that you're not voting for a party; you're voting for a pair of individuals (who happen to be backed by a party). The Libertarians haven't put forth any pleasing candidates that I can remember. Like most modern presidential candidates, they get their votes as either "least of the evils" or "party-line voting". Feel free to make me better informed about the current candidate; my disappointment in previous years has prevented me from properly researching this year's candidate.

[cellio]

Having said that, do you really feel that the Libertarian candidate, if elected, would do a better job of running the country? I don't mean theoretically, based on his political posture; I mean practically, given the existing political infrastructure.Bob Barr has more (applicable) experience than many past and present candidates (including one of the big two, actually) -- he's been in Congress long enough to have some clue how Washington works. Would he do a better job? This leads me to the question of what are the best-case and worst-case scenarios under the three candidates we've been discussing

Gridlock

[tc_tick]

If you like gridlock, you should live in CA -- the state has been w/o a budget for over 2 months and things are starting to get testy with the creditors, threats to pay state workers federal minimum wages (which is less than CA minimum), etc. One side has been absolutely intransigent and the other side is not willing to go that far. Neither side has enough votes to solve the impasse.

I have a feeling we are going to see this continuing on the national level regardless of who is elected president, however the impact of the president will be on the war, justice and other federal agencies, the supreme court, and our civil liberties.

Re: Gridlock

[cellio]

I don't like gridlock (remember, this was on my worst-case list, not best-case). But I prefer inaction to the wrong action. I want the parties to be forced to work together, rather than having one side get enough votes to say "neener neener, we don't care about you" to the other. Obviously this doesn't always work as well as it could.

[530nm330hz]

Worst-case outcome for a McCain win is further erosion of civil liberties, implemented through executive orders to bypass Congress.

I disagree. Worst-case outcome for a McCain win is that he dies on day two, and Sarah Palin controls the nominations for 3 Supreme Court appointments that are currently "liberal". This is the woman who tried to have a librarian fired for not deaccessioning certain books. The erosion of civil liberties would be implemented through executive orders to bypass Congress, upheld for another generation by a SCOTUS that would make Rehnquist look like a brie-loving liberal.

[cellio]

Ooh. Yeah, you're right -- similar outcome but much more devastating means.

[cellio]

On reflection, if he dies on day 2 I doubt seriously that even today's US voters would re-elect Palin. In that scenario she gets four years (still plenty of chance to do damage), not eight, IMO.

[grouchyoldcoot]

I'd believe that too, except that they re-elected Bush.

[grouchyoldcoot]

Hm. We should have an in-person discussion about health care and the insurance industry sometime.

[cellio]

Sure. Again, I'm not saying the current system works; we've both seen ample evidence that it's broken. But I also distrust concentration of power and decision-making about something so important. That way lies (among options) Canada, with which I also have some experience. If we "fix" it but make it worse in the process, then (1) we have worse health care and (2) a lot of the momentum to fix it has been lost (people are rarely up for the rematch). Anything we do on something so important should be incremental and reversible.

[grouchyoldcoot]

Good thought, except that we appear to be in a local minimum. If all incremental changes are uphill, we can never get to the proper, optimal plan.

One approach would be to pick a single state and switch it over, as a test case. Unfortunately there's no way to pick which state.

[byronhaverford]

A local minimum? Good God, you needn't believe everything you read.

Is that why the richest people from around the world choose to have their health care in this country? Is that why doctors choose to come here in droves for their training? Why virtually everyone who has received care in other countries prefers to have it here? There are reasons why we have high infant mortality and low life expenctancy. Quality of health care is not one of them. We pay a premium price for premium health care.

Doomsayers have been predicting the imminent demise of the health care system for the last 40 years, because clearly it cannot possibly get any more expensive without drowning under its own weight.

Picking a single state doesn't work. The goal of universal health care is to drive costs down with monopolistic pricing. Doctors can leave a state; it's harder to leave a country.

[grouchyoldcoot]

I think you misunderstood- I meant a local minimum in the optimization sense, in that small changes will not show improvement. I'm well aware that this is the best country in the world for rich people to get medical care.

Do you happen to know what fraction of health care costs passes through doctor's salaries, and what fraction goes directly to infrastructure or pharmaceuticals? I'd always assumed salaries were a relatively small part of the cost of an average hospital stay.

[byronhaverford]

Oh, oh, oh. You mean the slope is near-zero. You're right; I misunderstood.
Jeez. /Now/ who's emotional? ;>)

But now I have to admit that I don't understand your meaning. A local minimum is a relatively stable situation. That's (in some sense) a good thing. The doomsayers claim that we're one MRI away from bankrupting the country with burdensome health care costs. So.... I'm lost.

You are correct that salaries are a surprisingly small percentage of costs (compared to other industries). Once upon a time, I knew the exact number. But I didn't just mean salaries when I said "monopolistic pricing".

At the moment, it is still feasible to refuse Medicare patients. That wouldn't be an option in single-payer.

[grouchyoldcoot]

My notion of a local minimum is that there is a better minimum elsewhere, separated from the current state by configurations that are worse. I'm sure we can't agree on what it would be, but there may be an arrangement which is more efficient than the current one yet still provides appropriate care.

[grouchyoldcoot]

Oh, and I've got a really great argument for you on the lies-vs-hypocrisy discussion.