I have noticed several yards with yard signs for both Mike Bost and Paula Bradshaw. Since the other signs in the yards all tout Republican candidates, I would assume promoting Bradshaw's candidacy along with Bost's is part of the Bost campaign's strategy to siphon off votes from the Enyart campaign. It would be nice to have some form of proportional voting but under our current system, any vote for a third party candidate equates to an eventual vote for the winning candidate.
Sorry to blow up your conspiracy theory but you exclude the more likely explanation for the conflicting signs: That some residences have more than one adult resident, with differing views on who they support. I know for a fact that this is the case at one of the more prominent residences on Main Street. I would also note that Paula's base is in Carbondale, so in that sense, she is more likely to affect possible Bost voters than Enyart voters based in the Metro East. And of course, the real base of the Green Party lies with voters who otherwise wouldn't vote for Dems or Republicans anyway. I would also point out that your jab at third-party candidates is predicated on the false assumption that they can't win, which is demonstrably false, although matters are not helped when so many share the self-fulfilling prophecy that you do. That is, when enough people keep repeating the premise, and use scare tactics to herd voters back into the two-party camp, they of course help make it come true much of the time. I would suggest that we would do well to stop voting like cowards, or things will never change for the better.
ReplyDeleteYou do make a valid point in your argument that apartments may have multiple supporters of different candidates. My argument against the success of third parties is based upon looking back at American history. All third parties in our history, with the exception of the Republican party, have not managed to supplant either of the two main parties. Bull Moose, Know Nothings, United We Stand, none were able to maintain long term viability.
ReplyDeleteYou also make a valid point, of course -- but I would point out that we are not prisoners of history. We make our own history; it is the product of human agents. In the grand scheme of things,150 years of American history hardly demonstrates an iron law of politics. The forces demanding and requiring major social change are constantly building. Climate change now threatens the stability of the biosphere itself. And in this race, both the Democrat and the Republican are pro-fracking, pro-burning more fossil fuels, pro-military-industrial complex. Doubtlessly one can identify differences between them but those differences pale in significance to these paramount issues, in which the only candidate for progress, not regress, is Paula Bradshaw.
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