Marcy Winograd

[Sean Mulligan]

[quote="The Duchess of Zeon"]Proposition 14 was a valiant expansion of the extremely good legislation in Washington State which means that we can have democrat/versus/democrat races; it does the exact opposite of what you say, by guaranteeing that the top two, regardless of party, go into the runoff election. It means that anyone can ultimately be elected to office, the person the votes choose, instead of fanatics from extremist wings of the parties getting chosen by their own fanatical supporters and then running against each other with a pathetic race to the centre. Top Two primaries with effective runoffs for general elections between the two highest vote getters are the best and most straightforward solution to the broken party system we can have, and they're not at all unconstitutional, Washington State's has been racking up plenty of court successes in the ridiculous challenges to it. It actually fits perfectly as it is a considerable progressive victory against the forced two-party choices currently available in most of America.[/quot/]

If the proposition is an attack on the two party system, then why do all the third parties, such as the Greens and the Libertarians oppose it and say that it will exclude third parties?

[Questor]

Proposition 14 was a valiant expansion of the extremely good legislation in Washington State which means that we can have democrat/versus/democrat races; it does the exact opposite of what you say, by guaranteeing that the top two, regardless of party, go into the runoff election. It means that anyone can ultimately be elected to office, the person the votes choose, instead of fanatics from extremist wings of the parties getting chosen by their own fanatical supporters and then running against each other with a pathetic race to the centre. Top Two primaries with effective runoffs for general elections between the two highest vote getters are the best and most straightforward solution to the broken party system we can have, and they're not at all unconstitutional, Washington State's has been racking up plenty of court successes in the ridiculous challenges to it. It actually fits perfectly as it is a considerable progressive victory against the forced two-party choices currently available in most of America.

If the proposition is an attack on the two party system, then why do all the third parties, such as the Greens and the Libertarians oppose it and say that it will exclude third parties?

Because they don't like the way it will break the two party system, as it will result in their own destruction. If it achieves the goal, it will do it by forcing Democrats to run against Democrats and Republicans to run against Republicans. I expect it will make having party endorsement more important, and encourage voting blocks, rather than the other way around, myself.

If you combined 14 with either publicly funded campaigns or sane finance limits, then I think it would do far more of what it's proponents want.