Authored by: futurenow on Tuesday, August 12 2003

It is only the process that makes us seem stupid, because it is so different from the usually unquestioned 2-party system that we have settled on in the U.S. This dispite the fact it does not represent the CA/New England Republican (fiscal conservative/social liberal -- i.e. governors of MA, NJ, RI, NY and Arnold) or the Southern Democrat (social conservative/fiscal moderate) that could be more successful in a general election than within their own party primaries.

In many ways this is election is very similar to a traditional European election with it more dynamic coalition building among many minority parties. In England it is illegal to hold a campaign that is longer than 90 days (CA election is 83 days). In France last year there were 10 major candidates for prime minister (there are ~7 major candidates in CA), including an extremist that finished a close second in the first round. In Europe Governments are voted out well before the term is up (Italy has almost had a different prime minister every year since World War II). Also you usually have very interesting candidates and parties in these elections.

The fact that there is no run-off is what makes this particularly unrepresentitive. Although actively debated, most political theorists belive that the Australians and Irish have the most fair system -- where you rank each of the candidates and you have an instant run-off between candidates eliminating one candidate at a time. They do agree that simple majority is the worst system.

Of course this could have been avoided if the people when voting on the law didn't listen to the governor in 1911 who argued against major papers like the Chronicle that opposed the law. However as part of the recall process, voters also approved the initiative process which I think most people agree has been more successful even if the courts seem to throw out half of them for contradicting federal or state law and Ashcroft tries to keep others from being enacted.

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