The reason we have a two-party system is that that's the only stable result of our de jour first party the post system. The two major parties have nothing to fear.
And yet Canada and the UK both manage to have three nationally competitive parties despite using the same awful electoral system.
1. Arguing exceptions does not defeat the fact that it is the general rule
2. Both nations you provided actually undermine your point, as the 3rd parties get more percentage votes than representatives, on average.
3. Both of those nations are parliament systems in which they elect their Prime Ministers not nationally, but legislatively. This matters because of what I said in the GOP going forward thread--3rd parties might be viable regionally, but they simply cannot be on a national scale. The Duverger's law accounts for this, theorizing that in federalist systems like ours, where our high office is nationally elected, the parties have to merge on a national scale to keep competitive for the presidency.
I am well aware of Duverger's Law; I've cited it many times here. And it's true that the New Democrats and Liberal Democrats tend to receive a higher share of votes than seats, while the Bloc Quebecois and Scottish National Party are the reverse, being regional parties.
But those hypothetical third parties would not necessarily have to compete for the Presidency; that same Presidential-Congressional system* the US has would allow them to wield influence if they only managed to elect members of Congress, and likely more than they would in a parliamentary system when another party holds a majority in the legislature.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/01/how-hillary-clinton-bought-the-loyalty-of-33-state-democratic-parties/
Welp.
In August 2015, at the Democratic Party convention in Minneapolis, 33 democratic state parties made deals with the Hillary Clinton campaign and a joint fundraising entity called The Hillary Victory Fund. The deal allowed many of her core billionaire and inner circle individual donors to run the maximum amounts of money allowed through those state parties to the Hillary Victory Fund in New York and the DNC in Washington.
The idea was to increase how much one could personally donate to Hillary by taking advantage of the Supreme Court ruling 2014, McCutcheon v FEC, that knocked down a cap on aggregate limits as to how much a donor could give to a federal campaign in a year. It thus eliminated the ceiling on amounts spent by a single donor to a presidential candidate.
So the DNC is funneling donor money through state parties into a fund known as "The Hillary Victory Fund".
The fund is administered by treasurer Elizabeth Jones, the Clinton Campaign’s chief operating officer. Ms. Jones has the exclusive right to decide when transfers of money to and from the Hillary Victory Fund would be made to the state parties.
One could reasonably infer that the tacit agreement between the signatories was that the state parties and the Hillary Clinton Campaign would act in unity and mutual support. And that the super-delegates of these various partner states would either pledge loyalty to Clinton, or, at the least, not endorse Senator Sanders. Not only did Hillary’s multi-millionaire and billionaire supporters get to bypass individual campaign donation limits to state parties by using several state parties apparatus, but the Clinton campaign got the added bonus of buying that state’s super-delegates with the promise of contributions to that Democratic organization’s re-election fund.
The state parties participating in this scheme are at the mercy of the Clinton campaign's chief operating officer as to when they get their share of the money from the deal.
From these large amounts of money being transferred from state coffers to the Hillary Victory Fund in Washington, the Clinton campaign got the first $2,700, the DNC was to get the next $33,400, and the remainder was to be split among the 33 signatory states. With this scheme, the Hillary Victory Fund raised over $26 million for the Clinton Campaign by the end of 2015.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/clinton-fundraising-leaves-little-for-state-parties-222670
Remember the Hillary Victory Fund?
In the days before Hillary Clinton launched an unprecedented big-money fundraising vehicle with state parties last summer, she vowed “to rebuild our party from the ground up,” proclaiming “when our state parties are strong, we win. That’s what will happen."
But less than 1 percent of the $61 million raised by that effort has stayed in the state parties’ coffers, according to a POLITICO analysis of the latest Federal Election Commission filings.
The venture, the Hillary Victory Fund, is a so-called joint fundraising committee comprised of Clinton’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and 32 state party committees. The setup allows Clinton to solicit checks of $350,000 or more from her super-rich supporters at extravagant fundraisers including a dinner at George Clooney’s house and a concert at Radio City Music Hall featuring Katy Perry and Elton John.
The victory fund has transferred $3.8 million to the state parties, but almost all of that cash ($3.3 million, or 88 percent) was quickly transferred to the DNC, usually within a day or two, by the Clinton staffer who controls the committee, POLITICO’s analysis of the FEC records found.
By contrast, the victory fund has transferred $15.4 million to Clinton’s campaign and $5.7 million to the DNC, which will work closely with Clinton’s campaign if and when she becomes the party’s nominee. And most of the $23.3 million spent directly by the victory fund has gone toward expenses that appear to have directly benefited Clinton’s campaign, including $2.8 million for “salary and overhead” and $8.6 million for web advertising that mostly looks indistinguishable from Clinton campaign ads and that has helped Clinton build a network of small donors who will be critical in a general election expected to cost each side well in excess of $1 billion.
So actually, this fund isn't doing a great deal to help down-ticket Democratic candidates.
Dpareja, I was on another board when I realized that somebody there did what you did here, and it made me realize that you did it. I am kind of confused as to how you can justify being upset in both of these posts. It's contradictory to get upset at Hillary when you believe she's buying superdelegates, but then to get upset again when she isn't giving enough money to superdelegates. I guess what I am trying to say is I'm a bit cynical, and I think that you just want to be mad at Clinton while supporting anything that would help Sanders win (another good example is the March 15th primaries and your response). So I ask, what is the proper balance that Clinton should take in terms of raising money for lower ticket races?
It is one thing to oppose a candidate, but another thing entirely to oppose anything that candidate does.
It's not Clinton that I'm mad at there
per se; it's the system that effectively allows donors to evade contribution limits to her (or anyone's) campaign by funneling money through state parties. She just happens to be taking advantage of it.**
As for the March 15th primaries, as I said then, I first had that thought (and posted it on another forum) at least a week prior, and I should not have posted it here when I did.
*I use this term rather than "federalist" because countries like Canada and Germany are federal, but use a parliamentary system. Even the UK is quasi-federal these days.
**As you noted, much of the money staying with the DNC will go back to the state parties. But what's happening is this: a donor can give, in one year, $2,700 directly to a campaign, and another $30,000+ (I can't recall the precise figure) to a state party. Under the scheme set up with the Victory Fund, since about 25% of the money thus raised is apparently going to Clinton's campaign, that means that donor has effectively given at least $10,000 to Clinton's campaign, almost four times what said donor is supposed to be able to give. The underlying issue is how contribution limits are thus being evaded.
