Smoke Gets In
Your Eyes
Now laughing
friends deride
Tears I cannot hide,
So I smile and say, when a lovely flame dies
Smoke gets in your eyes.
Should we bring
back the smoke-filled rooms at political conventions?
I would suggest that selecting candidates through primaries,
rather than through conventions, has changed the dynamic from a ranked order method
to a plurality method. Candidates used
to be selected based on a majority of the convention. After many ballots and smoke-filled rooms, supporters
of candidates that did not have a chance of winning changed their support to candidates
that they preferred.
Primaries replaced those smoke-filled rooms. Rarely do political conventions go to even a second
ballot. However primaries also select candidates
that receive a plurality of the vote rather than a majority of the support. By doing so, candidates that might be the last
choice of the second-place finisher, are selected. The process may be more transparent, but it
has replaced a ranked order system, as imperfect as it was, with one where the plurality
wins. Eventually, according to Duverger’s
Law, there are only two parties and voters may choose the least offensive
candidate, rather than the best candidate.
There are polls for
the best college football or basketball team, which is basically a ranked order system
(e.g. how many first-place votes, etc.) which is then used to select the teams for the Football
Championship playoffs and is considered in seeding the teams for the NCAA March
Madness playoffs. Why do we select sports teams
using ranked order, but select candidates for election by primaries?
Kind of makes you wish for those smoke-filled rooms again.