Wow. This tool is either very useful
to marketers, or a total violation
of people's privacy. I was impressed.

Hey man, that's the law. Information about money given to elections has to be publicly available or else corruption will reign free.

You have a good point, however,
what's the point of having a
secret ballot then? The people
who choose to donate to campaigns
(probably mostly the wealthy) are
essentially outed. It can affect
their social and work environments
as well, even if their wage does
not depend on it.

Well, such a small population donates in $100+ denominations that I don't think it's really an issue. And your right to vote in secret is still preserved. E.g., I volunteered for John Kerry's campaign in 2004, but I voted 3rd party.

Who did you end up voting for?

and important to note that one woman gave $1000 to Wesley Clark in our neighborhood - doubt she voted for him!

Coughcoughahemahemnaderachoo. Maybe I'll write it about someday, but I've pretty much vowed to always vote 3rd party as long as I'm in a blue state and the election system is as mathematically flawed as it is (3rd parties usually get the shaft). But now that I'm in a purple state, I might vote Democrat in 2008.

This is a great resource. And they're not discriminating by size -- I found someone in Jon May's neighborhood who gave $50 to a candidate.

Hmm, well, I gave $25 to Kerry but didn't see my name on there, so I thought that there was a threshold.

Ah, keeping it under wraps, huh, crazymonk? Just waiting to take the time to make it into some quality blog material.
That's ok, then.

yo bone, i gave $250 to DNC, but also am not listed. mm.

My parent's neighborhood is exciting. The guy down the street gave 10,000 to the DNC... he would always have a rocking Halloween party with a Nathan's hot dog cart in his yard. I think he was a Nathan's VP or something.

Also, one lady gave $50 to Kucinich, but I don't know her.

Frame, I think it's a rule to spell rocking rockin'.

i was looking at the simsbury contributions - no data for 06070 (and I forgot the other one). I looked at 06092. Republican just edges out democrat contribs. I'm still shocked by how many last names I recognize.

Hey Monk, know anything about something called Duverger's Law? We learned about it in class. Some interesting stuff re: 3rd parties.

Ha, I vote 3rd party and I support the two-party results of Duverger's Law. We're better off having a system that forces politicians towards the center than a system that forces them towards the edges. The two party system is the way to go, regardless of what my personal voting history might argue.

Then why even vote? If Duverger says single-member districts lead to two parties, and the Median Voter Theorem pushes the two parties to the political center, why should we lefties even participate?

ahem...you libertarians, too.

I never knew the name "Duverger's Law" but I'm very familiar with what it states. Thanks for putting a name to it, Geoff.

Doorframe, the phrase "we're better off" is quite interesting, and I can see the issue from your side. By not allowing 3rd parties to gain traction, political change occurs painfully slow but in a very stable way. Assuming you don't think that the middle is terrible for the world (yet many people think that's the case in the long run), the current unfair system is all right because the results are all right. This is called the end justifying the means.

I, on the other hand, do not believe in the end justifying the means. I also think that the current middle-of-the-road system does a lot of terrible things -- and I don't think giving 3rd parties a viable voice would send this country down an insane path. In fact, I think it would speed up social change for the better (from my perspective) and isolate the crazy right-wingers from the Republican party. If extreme right-wingers (I'm talking about people who love the drug war, hate homosexuality, and want state=church) could vote in a non-first-past-the-post system w/o the spoiler effect, it would be clear and unsubtle what percentage of the country believes in those things. Right now, those voters have little choice but to hide behind the Republican agenda.

Of course, the same applies to extreme left-wingers as well. In a voting system not hindered by Duverger's law, it would be clearer to the mainstream media and to the world that a sizeable population of the US believes in, e.g., gay marriage. Let me put it this way: right now, around 30% of the country believes in gay marriage, yet less than 1% of the population voted for a presidential candidate in 2004 who supports gay marriage. I think the fact that the 2-party system is squashing the gay marriage movement is enough reason to "risk" giving 3rd parties a voice, but the same could be said for the drug war, the death penaly, corporate regulation, etc.

So do you really think an unfair election system is worth the "great" government we have now?

are there any virtues, then, of a two-party system (besides lower transaction costs)?

are you asking me or doorframe?

doesn't matter.

I don't know how to answer that. I'm not really sure what a "two-party system" is. Right now, we don't really have a two-party system, we have an election method that creates two strong parties and marginalizes all the rest. If that's a two-party system, then I would say that its virtues, e.g., stability and middle-of-the-road politics, are outweighed by its faults, e.g., stability and middle-of-the-road politics. It really depends on your point of view.

Three cheers for stability and middle of the road politics!

Change comes slowly and wanders in from the edges, but it does come. People take a long hard look at new possibilities before they're enacted. The center fights against them for a long time, until they're mainstream enough to be politically helpful and then someone will grab on to the issue. When gay rights hits 40%, you wait to see how long it takes to become the tent-pole of the Democratic party.

I'm always annoyed when a party in a Parliamentary system is trying to form a government, and one side can get almost fifty percent but needs one more party to join their coalition in order to take power. Suddenly the tiny groups that hold just enough seats to put the main party over the top have the power to start making serious demands from the big parties. They only had 5% of the vote, but now they're in the position to set the agenda (at least on a few issues). That always seemed hideously unfair.

re: why vote at all? - I've argued many times that one vote never matters (my hometown, of course, being the exception). Generally, I say people should vote becuase they enjoy voting... mathematically it's not going to matter so don't vote because you think you're having an impact. You're not. Voting is a self-contained activity.

I disagree Doorframe. To say that any
action you have as an individual (including
voting or consumer actions) does not have
an affect ultimately sponsors a feeling
of disempowerment. It shows a certain
level of defeat and low self esteem.

I agree that it shows a level of defeat, but I don't see the low self esteem argument. If anything, I'd say it encourages more self esteem: I don't need to feel that my vote matters in order to find value in the act of voting. My self-worth does not depend on whether or not I'm making a direct difference.

Individual action almost never has any impact. That one vote for Nader, that one recycled can, the one cd or pizza boycotted... it doesn't change anything. To fool yourself on this matter in order to feel better about your role in the world doesn't seem productive. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do those things, but you don't need to delude yourself about the impact in order to find value in them.

Lord, if only my students would articulate their positions as well as all of you! I agree with DoorFrame that a purely economic theory of voting (a la Anthony Downs) is irrational. Any benefit from your candidates' success must be discounted by the miniscule probability of casting the pivotal vote (Buffalo also has a race decided by a single vote, and I believe that the 18 year old mayor of a Michigan city was recently elected by a margin of 2), and balanced by the costs of voting. But I disagree with DoorFrame in classifying Parliamentary democracies as hideously unfair. Would you prefer tyranny by the minority? Pray tell, which minority should dominate?

Doorframe-- I'd hate to have your beliefs, because ultimately it places you in a
philosophical middleground of lightweights.

Aren't you in law school? :)

Certainly you must believe that money and power play a huge role in how political decisions are made.

Saying that not voting increases
your self-esteem probably is an exception that proves the rule. That might be
true, for oh, you.

Do you think overweight people have high self-esteem because they don't need to value themselves based on society's general consensus as to what attractive people should look like?

Of course, it's a lot easier to be apathetic about voting. Even if you don't use your vote, on philosophical grounds the right to have a vote is important. How do you think
you'd feel if you lived in a dictatorship and you had no vote?

As an aside, look at Anthony Gidden's
structure theory. It's about organizations
and individuals and where power lies.

My personal feeling is that all organizations are sums of their parts: individuals. Thus, I believe that individuals make changes, not organizations.
Organizations are just the venue through
which people do it, whether it's government, business, or non-profit.

Ultimately, perceptions of empowerment are almost synonymous with self-esteem.

Here's a link that explains
the basics of structuration theory, which
can get quite confusing when presented
in more elaborate form.

http://www.theory.org.uk/giddens2.htm

Thanks for the link, Slater. It sort of sounds like Kenneth Waltz's theory of international politics. I wonder what empirical evidence Gidden cites. Or is it more of a CAS model?

"money and power play a huge role"

Of course, but that only works against the impact of a single vote. The impact of a single rich person who is dedicated to changing an election through individual RICH PERSON action can be immense.

"Saying that not voting increases your self-esteem"

Ha, ok, I withdraw that statement. Not voting doesn't actually increase my self-esteem, but voting even though I don't believe that it has an impact does indicate that I have enough self-esteem to not be bothered by my self-acknowledged lack of efficacy.

"Do you think overweight people have high self-esteem because..."

No, but I do think that when overweight people don't care about how society views them it indicates that they have high self-esteem. Of course being overweight and regretting it probably indicates the other way.

"How do you think you’d feel if you lived in a dictatorship and you had no vote?"

I don't think individual votes matter, but I do think that general mass-voting does matter.

"Aren’t you in law school?"

Ha, yes. Also, Slater, I don't know who you are... but you seem to know who I am. Your handle here doesn't ring a bell for me. Unless, of course, you're A.C. Slater, in which case you're awesome.

"Parliamentary democracies as hideously unfair. Would you prefer tyranny by the minority? Pray tell, which minority should dominate?"

But this is precisely my problem with Parliaments, they give a disproportionate level of power to the extreme minorities. By forcing the major parties to build coalitions, they grant power to the tiny minorities who otherwise would have nearly no power in setting the political agenda. I like that the tiny minorities aren't able to impact the agenda in our system. With the exception of the occasional spoiler candidate (Nader/Perot), we've marginalized the impact of these minority parties.

Whether you like the way we count votes or not, it does require a true majority of something. Either the electoral college or, as I recall, Congress. (I don't remember if the congressional vote requires a true majority, or simply a plurality). And honestly, we almost always get a majority popular vote. I don't feel that a Parliamentary system is better at avoiding the tyranny of the minority.

Geoff: Is a CAS model a computer aided
model?

If so, I doubt that Giddens
used any, if you look at the more
detailed explanations the website
provides about Gidden's views on
identity and such.

I do know that Giddens
is the director of the London School of
Economics, so I don't think he's sitting
around in an Ivory Tower coming up
with this stuff. He also appears to
have some association with Tony Blair.

Check out these lego-theorists:

http://www.theory.org.uk/lego-theorists.htm

I bet kids really enjoy the Michel Foucault
legoman that comes with an S/M dungeon.

Doorframe: Yes, I have just been giving
you a hard time for fun. Of course we are both probably right and wrong in some ways.

As for my reign on Saved by the Bell? Didn't happen. Although I did have a semester where I helped a minor celebrity/actress with trigonometry homework.