[ExI] crossdressing: was RE: Nobody can say we weren't warned

[Tara Maya]

I like your analogy, Spike, and I think it works, but it can also become subverted.

As in any form of group selection, this system only works if the party can police itself so that its members do indeed choose the best candidate to run. What if, however, advancement in the party becomes more a matter of pleasing the party apartichiks, rather than pleasing the public? I believe that we see this in many European parties which work off a slate of pre-chosen names. Advancement becomes a matter of jostling amongst the elite, and appealing in particular to upper reaches of the party. Of course, it also is vulnerable to corruption. In that case, members of the party chose the candidate that will best benefit themselves, not the nation or even the party itself.



> On Oct 23, 2016, at 8:40 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> 
> Now imagine the party wants to control the pragmatist vote.  A category of
> special delegates are selected, ones that can be consulted, controlled,
> party loyalists.  Lock up these delegates, the Chosen One locks up the major
> contributors and the pragmatist vote.  With those three factors (selected
> delegates, pragmatists and donors) the primaries are over before they start.
> The party appears unified.  I call it pseudo-unified.
> 
> Meanwhile, the hapless opponents not using that strategy are scrapping for
> donations, fighting each other, dividing themselves 17 ways.  The advantage
> to the pseudo-unified party is enormous.
> 
> Even if a challenger emerges who has no chance at all and makes a surprising
> good showing by coming across even to those who disagree as at least a
> decent respectable person, the illusion of a unified front can be
> maintained.

Tara Maya
Blog  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Amazon  |  Goodreads