Good night

I'm not waking up till noon tomorrow the way this is shaking out

I'm up before the people who really care about this are, because I went to bed last night. But anyway,

Can the Lib Dems sagging in the last week or so be attributed to a lack of appetite for major electoral reform? And am I alone in thinking proportional representation would be a bad idea?

TenuredVulture wrote:I'm up before the people who really care about this are

Au Contraire.

TenuredVulture wrote:Can the Lib Dems sagging in the last week or so be attributed to a lack of appetite for major electoral reform? And am I alone in thinking proportional representation would be a bad idea?

I think its down to the libdems not organising well enough. Overall percentage on the vote up on 2001 and 2005. did not do well in their targeted marginals - only 8 gains on their targeted list - given they were aiming for 100 seats from a current position of 60, it gives you an idea of how badly they fell short.

Everyone is now commenting how this election had much more varied swings from constituency to constituency - more a campaign on individual MPs than parties as a whole. Hence Peter Robinson, head of the DUP, losing out to the alliance party probably in part because of the craziness of his own personal life and private business dealings. Hence also, the greens grabbing their seat in Brighton - they focussed on their best shot, and by some accounts had one of the best local political organisation enabling them to pull off an incredible swing from the incumbent labour MP.

As for PR, you're wrong. Dead wrong. You need to stop applying hobbes like some kind of iron rule to the numbers of politics. The minute you hear coalition, you assume some kind of weakness. It's a crude form of analysis, and it ignores the facts.

Take Ireland as an example. despite having the purest form of Proportional Representation in Single Tranferable Vote, Fianna Fail has managed to be in power and dictate the direction of the country for well over 20 bloody years and several coalition governments.

People frequently cite coalition politics as some kind of drain on economic well being, disregarding germany's economic stability under coalition govt since the 1990s.

Coalition politics didn't seem to cause Churchill many problems when he was fighting WWII, so I'm guessing it's not that hard to run a war when you've got a coalition government.

It's all lazy analysis, with little regard for how forms of PR cope elsewhere. I can't speak for the american national psyche, but in the UK, it's seen as symptomatic of the weakness of government in the 70s and the Liberal Labour pact, as well as ted heath's attempts to govern in minority. People need to get over that shit. A significant chunk of the democratic world get on fine with it. So should the UK.

Exit polls did a hell of a job huh

jerseyhoya wrote:Exit polls did a hell of a job huh

everyone's wondering how they managed it given the craziness.

Randomness evens out I guess. Conservatives had good BABIP in a few places, and in others the line drives were right at Labour, but over a 162 game season seems like the third order wins and first order wins ended up about even.

Wizlah wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I'm up before the people who really care about this are

Au Contraire.

TenuredVulture wrote:Can the Lib Dems sagging in the last week or so be attributed to a lack of appetite for major electoral reform? And am I alone in thinking proportional representation would be a bad idea?

I can't speak for the american national psyche, but in the UK, it's seen as symptomatic of the weakness of government in the 70s and the Liberal Labour pact, as well as ted heath's attempts to govern in minority. People need to get over that $#@!. A significant chunk of the democratic world get on fine with it. So should the UK.

But this goes to TV's first question: regardless of whether it truly is a bad idea, do people in the UK think it's a bad idea? And if they are against it, does that go a long way to explaining the Lib Dem's fading bounce?

It seems to me your analysis of the Lib Dems, in general, is spot on; their bounce was "artificial" in that it came from people's gut reaction to the novelty of the first televeised debates and seeing the Lib Dem leader given a lot of exposure for the first time; but the Lib Dems relied too much on that exposure, and not enough (probably because they are under-funded) on good old-fashioned door-to-door canvassing, phone calls, and other more time consuming - and expensive - methods of getting their message out.

At any rate, the Exit polls certainly were remarkably accurate. I suppose Cameron will wind up the next PM, but I feel like, in some senses, the real "winner" here, to the degree there was one, was in fact Labour. To be only about 50 seats out of the majority, after how badly they were polling for so long, and how much was expected of the Conservatives, is really not bad at all.

mozartpc27 wrote:
At any rate, the Exit polls certainly were remarkably accurate. I suppose Cameron will wind up the next PM, but I feel like, in some senses, the real "winner" here, to the degree there was one, was in fact Labour. To be only about 50 seats out of the majority, after how badly they were polling for so long, and how much was expected of the Conservatives, is really not bad at all.

This is labours worst result since 1983. They are in no way winners. This is the biggest loss of seats by a single party going back 80 odd years, apparently.

Wizlah wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:At any rate, the Exit polls certainly were remarkably accurate. I suppose Cameron will wind up the next PM, but I feel like, in some senses, the real "winner" here, to the degree there was one, was in fact Labour. To be only about 50 seats out of the majority, after how badly they were polling for so long, and how much was expected of the Conservatives, is really not bad at all.

This is labours worst result since 1983. They are in no way winners. This is the biggest loss of seats by a single party going back 80 odd years, apparently.

And they may have been close in the seat totals, but they lost the popular vote by 7% and were under 30% total, which is horrendous. If there wasn't a Labour bias built into the boundaries or if there was PR or something, Labour would have been even worse off.

mozartpc27 wrote:
But this goes to TV's first question: regardless of whether it truly is a bad idea, do people in the UK think it's a bad idea? And if they are against it, does that go a long way to explaining the Lib Dem's fading bounce?

To find out whether people in the UK think PR is a bad idea, the best thing to do would be to ask them. given the vagaries of tactical voting, the liberal's inferior organisation, the fear in scotland, parts of northern england and wales of returning to a tory government - all these factors go some way to making it hard to read this vote for the liberals as some kind of referendum on PR.

As far as PR goes, I'm not (at least not consciously) applying a Hobbesian analysis, though I am probably guilty of a fair amount of parochialism. I don't have a problem with coalitions in the least either--a first past the post system can still result in coalitions, whether of formal parties aligning as looks to be the case in Britain soon, or in informal groups as is often the case in the US.

The problem with proportional representation to me is that it often gives fringe and extremist groups too much influence over policy. It may be that political culture and the specific nature of the PR system are more important than whether you've got a first past the post system or a PR system. A PR system with a small number of dominant parties isn't going to have the same issues as a PR system with a highly fragmented party system. But it seems while PR works well in Germany and France, it's also led to problems in places like Italy and Israel.

On more of a gut level, my observation is probably a consequence of my conservative disposition. From over here, it really looks like the British system is functioning rather well under some very trying circumstances. I'm not so sure it's ever a great idea to chuck a system that has a pretty long track record of coping with some major challenges.

jerseyhoya wrote:And they may have been close in the seat totals, but they lost the popular vote by 7% and were under 30% total, which is horrendous. If there wasn't a Labour bias built into the boundaries or if there was PR or something, Labour would have been even worse off.

True. I guess I'm just working off of my own expectation of Labour, which, up until about two months ago, was for them to get totally annihilated in terms of seats, like 1997 Blair-level annihilation, only in reverse. But you're right, the voting system favors them so enormously that it is hard to take the seats themselves without a grain of salt.

TenuredVulture wrote:The problem with proportional representation to me is that it often gives fringe and extremist groups too much influence over policy. It may be that political culture and the specific nature of the PR system are more important than whether you've got a first past the post system or a PR system. A PR system with a small number of dominant parties isn't going to have the same issues as a PR system with a highly fragmented party system. But it seems while PR works well in Germany and France, it's also led to problems in places like Italy and Israel.

First past the post does not work well as a voting system if there are more than two parties. It's straightforward as that. It doesn't accurately represent the voting preferences of the public. It allows the two largest parties in this case to skew the system in their favour. all the political culture in the world will not change that.

You're talking about PR in hypotheticals. What constitutes a highly fragmented party system? Give me comparative examples. As long as I've lived, Ireland have had 3 major parties with a plethora of minor parties all clinging on to a seat or two hear and there with numerous independents. Sometimes they have had incredible influence. Other times they haven't. That hasn't been a function of the electoral system, but the preferences of the voting public, and the leaders of the various parties.

How often have fringe or extremist groups had influence over policy? Which examples are you thinking of? Why, for example, has india never succombed to a coup in its incredibly fragmented political history since its inception? Isn't that an argument for stability of PR? India is about as fragmented as you can get in terms of a multiplicity of faiths and ethnic groupings.

Put brutally, if your interest is in a political system which keeps out extremists, don't let the extremists vote. Or accept that they are going to vote, but most people won't let them into power and will actively work against it.

oh yeah, American stuff:

polling on the Arizona bill was done, and SURPRISE:

Based on what you know or have heard about the new Arizona Immigration Law, do you favor or oppose it?

Whites support the bill 63-26. Latinos, 15-76. Blacks, 8-80

Arizona now requires anyone passing through or living in their state to carry papers proving citizenship that can be produced at the command of any law enforcement officers. Do you approve or disapprove of this requirement?

Whites support this requirement 58-35. Latinos, 9-81. Blacks, 4-83

so people who've faced state-sponsored and/or ingrained discrimination seem to be against this. Wonder why.

TenuredVulture wrote: On more of a gut level, my observation is probably a consequence of my conservative disposition. From over here, it really looks like the British system is functioning rather well under some very trying circumstances. I'm not so sure it's ever a great idea to chuck a system that has a pretty long track record of coping with some major challenges.

How is FPP working? 23% of the vote has not translated into 23% of the parliamentary seats. 36% of the vote has translated into significantly more than 36% of the seats. That's not working at all.

It's an antiquated system not well suited to coping with the broad political spectrum of opinion. By comparison, PR has coped fine in the devolved regional governments for at least two election cycles now.

pacino wrote:oh yeah, American stuff:

polling on the Arizona bill was done, and SURPRISE:

Based on what you know or have heard about the new Arizona Immigration Law, do you favor or oppose it?

Whites support the bill 63-26. Latinos, 15-76. Blacks, 8-80

Arizona now requires anyone passing through or living in their state to carry papers proving citizenship that can be produced at the command of any law enforcement officers. Do you approve or disapprove of this requirement?

Whites support this requirement 58-35. Latinos, 9-81. Blacks, 4-83

so people who've faced state-sponsored and/or ingrained discrimination seem to be against this. Wonder why.

Maybe a dumb question but is that nation-wide polling? Just Arizona? I ask because it would actually surprise me to hear that nearly 2/3rds of all white Americans support that law. Either way, I find it interesting that the law overall has 63% support from whites but the "papers" provision only gets 58% support. Isn't that provision more or less the law?

pacino wrote:

Arizona now requires anyone passing through or living in their state to carry papers proving citizenship that can be produced at the command of any law enforcement officers. Do you approve or disapprove of this requirement?

Whites support this requirement 58-35. Latinos, 9-81. Blacks, 4-83

That's a truly awful poll question

Apparently lost in the shuffle of it's racial profiling law Arizona legislature also passed a law allowing their secretary of state(I think) to remove candidatesfrom the presidential ballot in Arizona at his own discretion. That'll end well.

pacino wrote:

Arizona now requires anyone passing through or living in their state to carry papers proving citizenship that can be produced at the command of any law enforcement officers. Do you approve or disapprove of this requirement?

Whites support this requirement 58-35. Latinos, 9-81. Blacks, 4-83

...wonder how many whites will be detained because they weren't carrying papers proving they're not illegals from Canada...

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Apparently lost in the shuffle of it's racial profiling law Arizona legislature also passed a law allowing their secretary of state(I think) to remove candidatesfrom the presidential ballot in Arizona at his own discretion. That'll end well.

Voter Disenfranchisement much? Wow, who the hell pissed in Arizona's Cheerios?