gut
Senior Member
gut
Senior Member
posted by O-Trap...you see campaigns swing more to emphasize the virtues of voting FOR a candidate as opposed to against the other candidate.
Everyone has their pet policies. While there is a party agenda that tend to get pushed and members strong-armed into supporting, there's never been a lack of individual ideas and policies on the campaign trail. The "don't vote for him/her" is not the norm - most are trying to give voters a reason to vote for them, especially given the key is to turn out your base.
But I'm talking about actually legislating, not campaigning. I see no evidence multi-party legislatures in other countries are any more effective at governing. The more ideas at a table, and the more equal the leverage, the more a compromise is going to deviate from all the individual ideas....which is a good way to end-up with a mish-mash of mediocrity.
There seems to be this idea that diversity of thought dies as soon as a politician decides to associate with one of the two parties. I think that's patently false. The parties filter their best ideas such that a bill starts off with close to majority support. The two parties are not monolithic, nor are they the same. That spineless politicians won't make tough spending choices is more about re-election than anything - more parties won't change that.
