Are policies a hostage to swing states?
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-17-2012/exclusive---nate-silver-extended-interview-pt--2
I was watching this Jon Stewart interview with a statistician the other day - this is a guy who has explored the intricacies of polling and electorate research from a statistics perspective. In this segment of the interview he touches on a subject that caught my attention: election campaigns mining data to target increasingly shrinking, tiny portions of the electorate for the sake of winning swing states and thus, the election.
It was recently argued here that the electoral college system is (quote) "better" than a direct vote system - for reasons unexplained, unfortunately. Now, I'm aware that, being a non-American, I'm by definition doomed to never quite "understand" how the US electoral system is "more awesome", so I'm humbly prepared to be enlightened on the subject.
Still, I'll venture to give it a shot, and see if the way I understand this system is anywhere close to reality.
The 2008 swing states
The way I'm reading it, candidates desperately want to be (re-)elected, and that's why inevitably the election system is strongly influenced by the policy platforms the candidates present. Since the electoral college is a system where presidents are elected indirectly by electors from the states, the states determine the vote on a winner-takes-all principle (at least most of them do).
So many states that are either heavily leaning Republican or Democrat anyway, are in a sense "uncompetitive" in terms of election battles. The party dominating said state would inevitably win, and take all the electoral votes of that state.
As a consequence, a tiny number of battleground (or swing) states enjoy a disproportionate influence during election time, whereas at most other times many of them are largely irrelevant (either due to low population or insignificant contribution to the economy, or both). Election time is their only chance to be noticed, and politicians go to tremendous lengths to win the voters in these crucial states. In fact that's the main focus of their presidential campaigns.
The consequence from that is that presidential policies (and also federal policies) are heavily influenced by the agenda of these swing states and their constituents. Often more heavily than deserved. An example: the US policy about Cuba, which is very much shaped by the issues concerning the large Cuban American community in Florida, traditionally a swing-state. And their attitude to Castro is anything but friendly, for understandable reasons. Another example: the US trade policy has been significantly influenced by trade-skeptical union voters in another swing-state, Ohio.
I'm hasting to clarify that I don't think interest groups affecting federal policies is wrong or detrimental per se; I'm aware that policy making is a dynamic and inclusive thing. In that sense, the electoral college might be encouraging the candidates to pay more attention to certain interest groups with a strategic location. But the fact that this often gives those states a disproportionately large significance for the forming of policies, particularly at election time, an influence they probably wouldn't enjoy in a different (direct) system, is a thing worth pondering about.
Your turn, election experts!
I was watching this Jon Stewart interview with a statistician the other day - this is a guy who has explored the intricacies of polling and electorate research from a statistics perspective. In this segment of the interview he touches on a subject that caught my attention: election campaigns mining data to target increasingly shrinking, tiny portions of the electorate for the sake of winning swing states and thus, the election.
It was recently argued here that the electoral college system is (quote) "better" than a direct vote system - for reasons unexplained, unfortunately. Now, I'm aware that, being a non-American, I'm by definition doomed to never quite "understand" how the US electoral system is "more awesome", so I'm humbly prepared to be enlightened on the subject.
Still, I'll venture to give it a shot, and see if the way I understand this system is anywhere close to reality.
The 2008 swing states
The way I'm reading it, candidates desperately want to be (re-)elected, and that's why inevitably the election system is strongly influenced by the policy platforms the candidates present. Since the electoral college is a system where presidents are elected indirectly by electors from the states, the states determine the vote on a winner-takes-all principle (at least most of them do).
So many states that are either heavily leaning Republican or Democrat anyway, are in a sense "uncompetitive" in terms of election battles. The party dominating said state would inevitably win, and take all the electoral votes of that state.
As a consequence, a tiny number of battleground (or swing) states enjoy a disproportionate influence during election time, whereas at most other times many of them are largely irrelevant (either due to low population or insignificant contribution to the economy, or both). Election time is their only chance to be noticed, and politicians go to tremendous lengths to win the voters in these crucial states. In fact that's the main focus of their presidential campaigns.
The consequence from that is that presidential policies (and also federal policies) are heavily influenced by the agenda of these swing states and their constituents. Often more heavily than deserved. An example: the US policy about Cuba, which is very much shaped by the issues concerning the large Cuban American community in Florida, traditionally a swing-state. And their attitude to Castro is anything but friendly, for understandable reasons. Another example: the US trade policy has been significantly influenced by trade-skeptical union voters in another swing-state, Ohio.
I'm hasting to clarify that I don't think interest groups affecting federal policies is wrong or detrimental per se; I'm aware that policy making is a dynamic and inclusive thing. In that sense, the electoral college might be encouraging the candidates to pay more attention to certain interest groups with a strategic location. But the fact that this often gives those states a disproportionately large significance for the forming of policies, particularly at election time, an influence they probably wouldn't enjoy in a different (direct) system, is a thing worth pondering about.
Your turn, election experts!