Beauty of the Two Party System

I had a really interesting conversation with Dave a couple of months ago about the two party system, and he can probably explain this better than I can, but I'll take a quick stab at it.

I wish I could find the clip from the Simpsons Halloween VII episode, but there is a joke about a person not wanting to vote for Kang or Kodos who had been previously masquerading as Bob Dole and Bill Clinton. And the guy says he's going to vote for a third party, and they laugh and say, "go ahead! throw away your vote!" to which a cartoon Ross Perot responds by punching through his hat. I don't think their joke was so much a stab at the system, but more just an observation of it.

Some people don't like it, perhaps feeling like it doesn't represent their interests because they don't identify themselves as either Democrat or Republican. But the problem arises when you start thinking about the other possible alternatives out there. Israel presents such a scenario.

There are a number of different political factions in Israel, and in order for any one of them to gain a majority support, it requires pandering to smaller groups whose interests represent those of a tiny minority. What happens as a result of that is all of the sudden, a tiny group wields a disproportionately large amount of power that allows that small faction to indulge their own interests that most of the country doesn't share. It doesn't provide for a fair representation that captures the interests of most of the people. The resulting form of government, then, is not a good representation of the interests of the whole.

While the two party system is not perfect, at the same time it's probably much better than any of the alternatives. I think we've been able to see a little bit of the consequences that result because of our system from the election that we had on Tuesday.

It can probably be argued that most of what he was doing during the campaign season was pandering and positioning for votes, but Obama had to come further to the middle than he ever has before, likewise for Senator McCain. Although some of his policies are really liberal positions watered down to appear as moderate politics, Obama had to compromise to better represent more of the interests of the people. We are committed for a minimum of the next for years to his decisions, but one of the checks that we have on him while he serves as president is the next election that comes up in 2012.

In any case, because of the two party system I am able to find some hope in the fact that maybe Obama won't be as liberal as he would appear to be at first glance. If he does go the way of executing his far left liberal politics, then it should hopefully ignite the rest of the voting public to realize that he is not representative of the greater and broadest interests of the American public. But if he wants to be successful and maintain his position, then he'll absolutely need to stay in the middle if he wants to stick around.

Before we rush to judgment on his presidency, let's at least grant him the courtesy of some time in office to see what he actually does with his newfound powers. That kind of makes him sound like a super hero, but to a lot of people that is actually the case. Like this guy for instance.

Terry Tate says you better have voted on Tuesday.