Why the vote is split 50-50
In the year 2000 the two candidates of the duopoly* each had an almost equal percentage of the
popular vote. This has been the case with many recent elections. The
reason is that the parties backing these candidates want to get them
elected to the White House. To achieve this goal they avoid presenting an
unpopular position on issues, even if the unpopular position is better
for the country.
Unpopular position
Imagine that there are 100 issues that might matter to the electing
public. Have a popular opinion poll of each one and examine the
results.
If there is a clear majority on a particular issue then it would
not be politically smart for you to support the unpopular position.
You risk alienating the majority of voters. If the populace were
given the choice between two candidates with otherwise identical
positions who differ on this one viewpoint it would naturally become
the spotlight of the media focus (since nothing else is different
about the two). Therefore the one who supported the majority
viewpoint would garner more votes.
So consider a race between the following three candidates
- candidate whose principles cause him to take an unpopular position.
- candidate whose principles cause him to take a popular position.
- candidate who has no principles and takes the popular position.
Which one is guaranteed to lose? The one who takes the unpopular
position. Of the two remaining, who will win? The candidate with no
principles.
This is because he is free to pick the most popular positions for each
of the issues, whereas the candidate who has principles will very
likely have something about which he disagrees with the polled
public.
ambiguous position
However, the media needs some difference upon which to focus.
Fortunately, there are some issues that have the country split down
the middle. Candidates are free to pick one of these ambiguous
positions (in order to distinguish themselves from the other
candidates) without significant danger of it affecting their election
chances.
so you want to pick a candidate
You are one of the parties of the political duopoly. You want to get
one of your own into the white house. Are you going to choose
- a candidate with a strong sense of morals that cause him to take
one or two unpopular positions
- a candidate with a strong sense of morals that cause him to take
all the positions that are popular today, but might not be popular in
6 months.
- a candidate willing to take any position, so long as it is popular
? hmm, no brainer.
resulting behavior
If your competitor takes a popular position on an issue, you should
immediately take a similar position (of course you will phrase it
differently and propose a different plan, but you want to assume the
same position).
If your competitor takes a position on an ambiguous issue, you
should take the other side to give the media something fruitless on which
to focus their commentary.
where are the people?
In deep shit. Naturally the candidates the duopoly will place before
them will be vanilla, unprincipled politicians with no goal but to
attain power. The people will be mesmerized by debates over
controversial (meaning the opinion polls are split 50/50) topics while
revolutionary ideas of the third party candidates are denied coverage.
By polling the populace ahead of time, our choice has been
measured and the parties have responded. Each of them has found a
candidate who embodies our choices (at least the ones on which the populace has a clear favorite) and all that's left is for us to
choose between Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee.
glossary
- duopoly
- n. the combination of the Republican and Democratic
parties that prevents other political parties from achieving power or
influence.