On American Presidential Candidates

[the_s_guy]

Being as how the greater English-speaking part of the internet is still heavily US-influenced, it may not have escaped some of you that there are American elections coming up later this year

Comments

[ironbite]

*cracks whip*

YOU SHALL VOTE FOR OBAMA AND LIKE IT! LIKE IT!

[navigatorsghost]

I wonder what would happen if everyone outside America who has strong views on the issue started sending fan mail to their preferred candidates? Either "my friends/family/whatever are American and they want you in, so I support you!" or "I'm in one of these here other countries and I like your stance on foreign policy, I hope you get in!" or whatever. I mean, it obviously would have minimal real impact but you never know, "look at all this international support!" might have some value as an extra support to a candidate's platform.

*needs someone with better meme-fu than me to spread this idea around!*

[the_s_guy]

It'd be nice, and perhaps a note in the feedback symphony modern campaigners swim in (to mix metaphors), but under the current system their focus is to (a) get the electoral college votes, and (b) as a means to that end, get sufficient citizen votes in important areas.

This is one of the reasons that I have serious electoral reform on the list of things to do should I ever become able to force a given bill through the American political system.

(And boy, would that one bill be a whopper.)

[dvandom]

The problem with democracy is that people, by and large, are uninformed and intellectually lazy. Especially when taken as a group rather than as individuals. The Electoral College was devised as a system to try to insulate democracy from the whims of the mob...people would pick electors (or they'd pick state-level lawmakers who'd pick the electors, whatever) who were well informed and intellectually vigorous, and those electors would pick the President. The system, like any system is abusable, with the exact nature of the abuse varying over time. The current abuse is to slave the electors to the popular vote in their area, so they simply become mob rule by proxy...but adding on extra layers of mathematical complexity that the mob-manipulators can use to their advantage

[the_s_guy]

One reason why I approve of the Australian 'mandatory voting' provisions, even though it may inconvenience me personally. I figure giving up half an hour on a Saturday morning every three years or so is fair, even though our system counts electorates and not individual votes either (and the particular electorate I'm in is and always has been a stronghold for the party I don't like, so my vote will never actually count).