From: GA.JRG@forsythe.stanford.edu (June Genis)
Subject: Re: Endorsement
Organization: Stanford University, California, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 15:48:46 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.031828.25134@cbnews.cb.att.com>,
jmk@cbnews.cb.att.com (joseph.m.knapp) writes:
><jbrow@glv.com> writes: (Re: third party voting)
>>                                                    If you always play the
>>muddled middle ground, the politics of the country will drift away from what
>>you believe little by little.
>
>But why? Only if my view is in the minority, it seems to me. I don't see how
>the evolution to whatever system can't work in the two-party model. Won't the
>two parties chase the electorate wherever it wants to go? (In its
>infinitesimal wisdom.)

But how to they gage where the American electorate wants to go?

Regardless of what the polls and surveys say, what the major parties
pay attention to are elections returns.  They will always give you
more of what you've demonstrated a willingness to vote for in the
past.  Their goal is not to get you to vote *for* them but to keep
you from voting *against* them.  Therefore both parties will tend
toward a middle of the road position where they think they will
offend the least number of people.  The only way to shift where the
middle lies is to provide an alternative on the fringes which starts
to take some of their business away.

Let me try to relate a story I heard Milten Friedman tell a number
of years ago (I believe he may have credited someone else with the
original idea but I don't recall who any more.)

Suppose you have a town with a shopping district one block long.
A particular type of store is located near one end of it.  You want
to open a store that will compete with that store and you have to
decide where to locate it.  Your initial gut reaction might be to
say "at the other end of the block" but economic theory says that
what you really want to do is get as close to the other store as
possible while remaining on the long side of the block.  That way
you will get the casual business of everyone coming from that
direction (those willing to patronize the first store that seems
to fit their needs) plus maybe induce a few people to pass up the
other store who come from the other side.  Pretty soon the first
store owner realizes what's going on so he moves his store to the
other side of the new store.  This leap frogging will continue to
push both stores toward the middle of the block.

What happens now if a third store opens?   Since the middle is
already occupied that person will have to position their store
on one side or the other.  In doing so he will take some business
from the two establishments sharing the middle of the block.
Pretty soon the owner of the store closest to the newcomer will
realize that since the other established store is already getting
the casual business from the other side of the block that he may
have a better chance of recovering some of his lost casual business
by moving closer to the newcomer.  Of course, the other established
owner will then soon realize that what he needs to do is move
closer to the other two.  And the game of leapfrog continues but now
it is veering toward a new balance point which is no longer the old
middle of the block.

The is exactly how the game of politics is played as well.  Since
the Democrats and Republican both want to lose as few votes as
possible they will tend toward the same positions on all issues
where they think they can attract the casual political shopper.
When a new third party begins to show success by attracting business
based on veering from the centrist views of the two major parties,
it will eventually lead one or the other of them to believe it might
"improve its business" by shifting closer to that third party's
position.

But just as the businesses in out imaginary shopping district will
have no incentive to move if the new store gets no customers, the
major parties will have no incentive to shift their positions if the
third party gets no votes.  There must be a way to provide
meaningful feedback to the supplier in both cases.  The business
person measures success in dollars, the politician measures in
votes.

Therefore if you really want to see the big wholesalers in the
middle of the political block carry the stock you're interested in,
you have to be willing to shop at the third party boutique for a
while even if their prices are a little higher.

/June
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:43705 ca.politics:7429 ba.politics:5032 soc.motss:38184 ba.motss:1529