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Monday, December 13, 2010

Eat Your Shit And Enjoy It

The New Democratic Party slogan. It's testing very well, I hear.

2 comments:

Lorraine said...

Doesn't quite parse right. I originally thought I read "New Democratic Party." How can we get one of those, I wonder? Implementing a parliamentary form of democracy, I'm afraid, would require some major surgery on the Constitution. Perhaps IRV is our least best hope. How is that working in SF?

Dale Carrico said...

I live in Oakland, and we just elected our Mayor via IRV. I have long supported IRV and agitated for it via Proposition and so I was obviously pretty well educated about it before I arrived at the voting booth, but I paid careful attention to the way it was explained in ads and on the ballot itself, trying to imagine how someone less attentive might react, and was pleased overall with the clarity of the presentation. I understand its implementation was pretty smooth. The establishment candidate (for whom I did not vote even though he was a Democrat and endorsed by Brown, who I did vote for for Governor, who also won) did not win and complained about this a bit, but I think a far better candidate won in the second round precisely because of IRV. I think it worked as advertised, but we'll see how it plays out in the longer term. I'm still a big believer in IRV and advocate it nationally. If it were instituted I would no longer content that Third Parties can only function as spoilers and it is likely I would begin to participate in Green and Democratic Socialist Parties that more perfectly align with my own convictions, rather than advocating as I now do that more progressive folks seek to gain greater representation and control within the Democratic Party which is closest to those values in what is in fact (like it or not) an enforced party duopoly not to support which is always in effect to support the worse by far whether we like it or not.