Centerfield

Well, that's certainly a good way for McCain to ameliorate conservative concerns that he's too liberal and lacks basic interest in the first amendment: hire Howard Dean's internet guru who admires you principally for your work on campaign finance reform!

Posted by: Simon at August 24, 2006 07:33 PM

Incidentally:

If Republicans nominate him, and as I said yesterday I don't think that is out of the realm of possibilities, he could win by a landslide.

I think it's very possible that you're right, particularly if Time magazine gets its dream slugfest (McCain v. Clinton) - but I think it's also entirely possible that if the GOP nominates McCain, if he doesn't start doing something to shore up his standing with conservatives, they will bolt, and he will risk losing the election as a consequence. Hiring Mele is not an obvious way to go about that, it seems to me.

Posted by: Simon at August 24, 2006 07:36 PM

(Predictable) reaction on the right to the Meles hire:

http://www.dailypundit.com/2006/08/just_asking_10.php
http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2006/08/the_ktel_candid.shtml#015264
http://www.redstate.com/stories/elections/2008/is_john_mccain_running_in_08_from_a_third_party
http://tapscottscopydesk.blogspot.com/2006/08/mccain-pac-off-straight-and-narrow.html
http://www.humanevents.com/rightangle/index.php?id=15838&blog=3&title=conservative_blogosphere_reacts_to_mccai&more=1&a
http://www.rightwingnews.com/archives/week_2006_08_20.PHP#006302

Hilariously, liberals aren't much impressed, either. Given the political climate, this is really a white house or bust moment for Meles - he's a judas to the democrats and an interloper to Republicans. Hope you enjoy working in the private sector, Nicco...

Posted by: Simon at August 24, 2006 09:55 PM

If McCain is nominated for President a 3rd party challenge of some kind is nearly a foregone conclusion.

His immigration stance alone would warrant such a challenge, but I figure that his CFR position would also be a rationale for defection as well.

And yes, McCain's hiring of this Mele guy is kind of like many of the stellar personnel choices that Arnold Schwartzenneger has made while in the CA governor's mansion.

Don't know why Mele didn't flock to Feingold?? Except that McCain is already the front-runner of one of the major political parties.

Posted by: Cavalier829 at August 24, 2006 10:06 PM

If McCain is nominated for President a 3rd party challenge of some kind is nearly a foregone conclusion.

Tell me some more, Cav. What do you envision?

Honestly, the simple presence of a 3rd challenger troubles me very little. I 'll decide whether to be troubled depending on what particular dynamic this 3rd candidate creates. For example, I think it's very plausible to suggest that Perot was a major factor in Clinton getting elected, and that Nader was a major factor in Bush2 getting elected. So both of our last 2 Presidents owe their first election to such a dynamic. As we know, 2 is a trend right? :-)

Here's something else to think about. Immigration is such a contentious issue. Given this, isn't it plausible that we might see TWO alternative candidates? Suppose for example that someone decided to run as an independent on a strong anti-immigration populist platform. (Pat Buchanan comes to mind, but he has high negatives and a Don Quixote track record, so if it were any sort of serious movement they might want a more charismatic and circumspect standard bearer).

Such a candidate is going to pull the feasible contenders to the right. Under such circumstances, isn't it plausible that a populist pro-immigration candidate might emerge as well? Here's a wild-assed guess. Martin Sheen.

Posted by: bk at August 25, 2006 08:22 AM

For example, I think it's very plausible to suggest that Perot was a major factor in Clinton getting elected, and that Nader was a major factor in Bush2 getting elected.

I tend to think of the role of Perot and Nader in '92, '96 and '00 as a question of brute-force mathematics rather than anything so mundane as a "major factor." ;) Posted by: Simon at August 25, 2006 09:47 AM

Well, if you're a math editor you don't see any conflict between "the brute force of mathematics" and "major factor." :-)

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that either guy, in the end, was a viable candidate on par with the 2 major party candidates. I'm simply pointing out that their presence probably had a substantial affect on the outcome. And mathematically speaking, that's what a factor is, it's a part of the total equation that affects the outcome. In the equation of a presidential election, there are basically only 2 outcomes D and R. Any factor that can substantially affect whether the outcome is D or R is major enough. But that's just the semantics of an analogy.

Leaving aside quibbling about "major factor," do you agree that it's somewhere between possible and likely that the '92 and '00 elections could have had different outcomes without the participation of Perot and Nader, respectively?

I think it's fair to say that the "brute force of mathematics" shows that in presidential elections, relatively minor (nonviable?) candidates can have outsized effects.

Posted by: bk at August 25, 2006 10:19 AM

Brian,
I'm apologize - I was so glib that I may have accidentally conveyed the exact opposite of the point I meant to make. I was actually agreeing with you, but saying that I would put it in even more emphatic terms - that Clinton would not have been President absent Perot's presence, and Bush would not have won in 2000 without Nader handing him New Hampshire and Florida. This is another strike against third parties, in my view - third party candidacies tend to delegitimze the results by creating plurality victories such as Clinton's. It doesn't trouble me directly, because I very much support the electoral college, and I do not expect the guy who gets more votes to win (much of the newfound dedication to unfettered majoritarianism in the GOP base is, to say the least, wearying to me), but I also recognize that most people do not think this way, and when you have plurality winners, that tends to make people question the efficacy of the electoral college. So the less often it happens, the less demand I think there will be to tamper with a system that has almost invaribly served us very well (and even when it has failed us, permitting Andrew Jackson's election, it at very least delayed the inevitable).

Posted by: Simon at August 25, 2006 11:29 AM

Oh Simon, I think you are over thinking it just a bit. Yes, some will look at the hire of Nicco as another venue to bash McCain, but not anybody that was going to vote for him. The great majority of Republican primary voters aren't going to care who made McCain's website, or for what reason.

Posted by: Mathew at August 25, 2006 12:04 PM

The great majority of Republican primary voters aren't going to care who made McCain's website, or for what reason.

While I perhaps overstate the case, I think you understate it in equal degree. To win the nomination (and most likely the general election), McCain must win a rapprochement with the people who can grant or deny him the nomination. Ergo, McCain needs to be addressing the not entirely unreasonable concerns of conservatives that he is too far to the left (and, for that matter, too self involved), and hiring a liberal - and not a recanting liberal, either - to work for your campaign isn't a good way to start doing that. The very fact that Mele is willing to work with McCain -- not, mind you, because Mele has seen the light since he worked for Dean, but because he supports McCain -- is a warning klaxon to conservatives about where McCain's views are. Posted by: Simon at August 25, 2006 01:08 PM

Well, from the persepctive you describe, that's a strike against 3rd parties....that they can be used by the losers as a convenient scapegoat in the interests of de-legitimizing the undesirable results. Obvious that happens. The argument gets made. But hey, the result is what it is, it happened by the rules, so I view such complaints as sour grapes.

Another thing to notice though is the simple point that the last two presidents were elected in contests where 3rd Party (3P) candidates influenced the outcome. So even if I were to concede your point that 3rd parties can be harmful in a sense, it still makes sense to acknowledge that 3rd parties are not necessarily all irrelevant or beside the point, that they CAN affect the outcome. How and when are other questions to asdk later, be it shows the simple "can do, " right?

Now, let me hasten to add that it's probably fair to describe the effects in 92 and 00) as subversive, since the people voting for the unviable 3P candidate may have preferred the guy who ended up winning the least. This seems pretty obviously true for 2000, while I class the 92 results as somewhat more complicated. IMO, Perot would have had a non-negligible chance of winning had he not withdrawn and re-entered. Leaving aside his merits, the sentiment was there among the people for an enema President, and that's what Perot was selling.

But even if I conceded that the 3P effects in 92 and 2000 were subversive, I'd be pretty reluctant to conclude that 3P power was inevitably limited to subversion of voter intent. (Obviously, it's subversive of the dominance of the two-party system, at least in intent if not in shown outcomes)

Posted by: bk at August 25, 2006 01:46 PM

Simon,

I don't think the Electoral College will ever be in jeopardy as long there is a conservative party in America. Even though there are persistent voices calling for it's abolition, I think the best they could ever do is a reform of the Electoral College. But the states are never going to surrender their right to run elections for President, I don't believe.

And the historical record actually seems to bear out that even in the presence of 3rd and 4th party candidacies, the result is almost never less than an Electoral College majority. The Adams-Jackson-Crawford-Clay election is the only example of where this has happened in over 200 hundred years of history. Lincoln's election had four candidates. 1836 had three Whig candidates and a democrat, leading in 1840 to the establishment of a single Whig nomination process.

The Roosevelt-Wilson-Taft election also failed to bring down the College.

Then there are the many strong 3rd party runs and the College nearly always gives one side a healthy electoral vote majority.

I really think this point is overstated by people who don't like political competition. An election result where the top candidate doesn't get a majority of the vote isn't LESS legitimate than one where he does just because it is so.

Perhaps, Simon, you believe that given more than two choices in the General Election most people would choose to vote for their first choice and no candidate would ever get a majority. I don't think that is right at all. People vote 3rd party in the General only when the top two are obviously non-responsive to their interests.
But, in most cases, people will choose the lesser of the two viable evils even when they get a choice, because they'd like to determine the winner.

Knowing 3rd party motives, I think, better maybe, than you do, I know that many of them wouldn't vote at all if a 3rd party candidate wasn't running, so you can't REALLY be sure that the 3rd party has deprived the runner-up of the victory.

The willingness to vote outside the top-two alone leads me to believe they'd vote against the incumbent party, if they voted at all. Why would Perot voters risk defeating H.W. Bush if it mattered to them at all?

Posted by: Cavalier829 at August 25, 2006 02:34 PM

Brian,
Just before Stubborn Facts launched, I started writing what was going to be my first post there, about third parties, and I have still never gotten around to finishing it. Which is unfortunate, because this is where I would cite it! ;)

If I understand your point correctly (that third parties aren't always irrelevant - sometimes they are actively harmful, either to the interests of their supporters or to the stability of the democratic system) then it suffices to say that that is a thesis I enthusiastically agree with.

Posted by: Simon at August 25, 2006 02:49 PM

BK,

Because George W. Bush has gone soooo far in changing altering the M.O. of the GOP and because such a wide range of candidates seem to be headed for the nomination contest, with two relatively moderate candidates in the lead currently, I think the possibility of a sore-loser is pretty high.

I don't if we're looking at Unity '08 or something else. And, you're right, I think given the presence of '08 on the ballot (not a sure thing but they are thinking pretty far ahead) the possibility of another 3rd party independent of that effort makes 4 parties more possible, too.

He might be discounted by many, certainly in Republican and Democratic circles, however, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has indicated he would almost certainly run, especially if McCain lost the GOP primary.

If the race ends up without an anti-war candidate, say Hillary vs. McCain, I think an anti-war candidate would be in the offing as well. That could end up being Ventura as well, or someone entirely different. But he has said he'd be hesitant to run against McCain were he the GOP nominee, and if an anti-War candidate won the Democratic nomination, he'd almost certainly sit out 2008.

Then there is the immigration issue. Buchanan is done in elective politics, but there are others who could fill that void. If an anti-illegal immigration candidate got a serious number of votes in the GOP contest but someone like McCain or Giuliani (both more or less open-borders type candidates) won the nomination, I think you'd at least see SOME of that vote transfer to a 3rd party even if it was only the Constitution party. If that GOP immigration candidate ran a 3rd party it's support would be even greater.

I'd like to believe the GOP itself would nominate an enforcement first candidate, but I'm suspect about that.

There are several ways in which a 3rd party is likely and even a 4th might be possible.

(Simon's ears might be bleeding by now. Ouch!)

Posted by: Cavalier829 at August 25, 2006 03:03 PM

Simon,

Only if you conflate "democratic system" with "two-party system."

I don't.

I'll point this out every time you do such conflating.

Posted by: bk at August 25, 2006 04:53 PM