Brad Ideas - Political Spam == Campaign Finance Reform? - Comments

Eric Saund — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 13:50:02 -0800

There's an article about voting theory in the
March Scientific American.

Two parties makes sense when the choice criteria
are clustered along one axis. And, a third party
should be able to break off from the middle in an
orthogonal direction when enough voters are
undecided between the two majority parties. The
third party candidate is not a spoiler when they
siphon equivalent numbers of votes from the established parties.

There is no purpose in complaining about the Greens
(or any other party on an extreme end of the major axis)
not catching hold. They are so far from a majority that their
appropriate role is simply to tug at the candidate closest to them.

The strongest third party in the US that is not
built around a cult of personality is the Libertarians.
But their message is too alien for most voters
(although they all seem to have personality.)

I guess the real question is, does the two-party
system artificially project diverse interests
onto a single left-right axis? Would better
policy result instead from dynamic coalitions for every issue?

The advantage of clustering by strong parties is that the process
of developing the party position entails negotiation and compromise that forces
some coherence among interests prior to facing the other party.

European — Tue, 09 Mar 2004 04:05:02 -0800

I think you are missing the point. Most people
afraid of Nader running are afraid he will take
votes from Kerry, thus allowing Bush to win when
otherwise he wouldn't. Had Nader not run in 2000,
Gore would have one, despite Florida.

Of course, the real evil is the two-party system,
and Nader knows this. However, I think that he
overestimates himself (or, rather, the reaction
to him) when he says that the influence of him
running will cause folks to reform the system.
The system can be reformed only by the current
two parties, and they won't, since they would give
up more than they gain.

What is the lesser of two evils? I think the
lesser is for Nader not to run if Kerry otherwise
has a chance, rather than allowing Bush to win
while showing up the perversity of the system.
Intelligent people already realise it is perverse,
others won't be convinced, especially if it hurts
the left, not the right.

Kerry should have offered Nader the vice-presidency in return for not running, with a promise to really change the system if he is elected.

But it won't happen.

Political Spam == Campaign Finance Reform?

brad — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 05:59:28 -0800

I've maintained for some time that while most spam is commercial, whether something is spam is not dependent on it being commercial. Charity spam, religious spam and political spam are just as bothersome as Viagra spam.

However, fellow EFFer Larry Lessig challenged me on this by asking whether we might want to allow political spam. Spam is super-cheap to send (that's one reason it's a problem) but as a very cheap form of advertising it could be an equalizer when it comes to campaign expenses, since a candidate would low-funding could spam almost as well as one with boatloads of special interest money. That's unlike TV advertising, where the better funded candidate wins the game.

I have to admit that the current way elections are funded and political influence is bought and sold is a much more important problem than spam, so this is a question worth looking at.

Of course, it would be stupid for a politician to spam, even though they have exempted themselves from the spam laws. Spam generates such ill will (appropriately too) that I think a spam campaign from a candidate would backfire. Plus, I really don't like the idea of regulating spam based on what it says -- If it says one thing it's banned, if it says another it's OK.

But is there a germ of something worthwhile in here? What if the election officials managed the mailing list and voters had to be on it, for example.