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Douglas Roberts wrote: Like a dog returning his own vomit, I can't seem to distance myself from this thread. Owen Densmore speculated: People: I'm thinking Freakonomics here. Statistics. Human behavior patterns. You know, Science! . . . - Parties form attractors.  Maybe by staring into this image (like a (swirling)
pool of our own dogs-breakfast?) of the forces in an idealized 2-body
gravitational system (Earth-Moon) we can find portents and signs (or
inspiration) by analogy for some psuedo-scientific hypotheses that we
can then psuedo-test against our (anecdotal) psuedo-evidence.
On gross inspection I'd offer that L2 and L3 are where voters/supporters of the two parties orbit while independents and undecides hang out in orbits crossing L1. What of L4 and L5? Do Libertarians and Greens represent enough of a "different perspective" to be completely off the axes of Left/Right? If our election rules were different, would more voters/supporters accrete in these basins until we had three or more systems? To make the analogy work, I think there have to be both repulsive and attractive forces at work... not only can we vote *for* a party/candidate but we might instead be voting *against* the other(s). I know that my scant voting record has really been voting *against* a candidate, disguised as voting *for* his opposition. Just another thought to avoid real work and deadlines. - Steve |
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