fractalnavel

it occurred to me that one way of balancing this election (yes, there're a lot of presumptions in that phrase) would be to introduce a far right/conservative candidate, analogous to nader on the left/liberal side.  such a candidate would bleed off the more extreme rightist votes, or republican conservatives looking for an alternative to bush, in just the same way that nader's candidacy is seemingly affecting liberal democrats and kerry's campaign.  i would even think this would nominally be a practical enough strategy that some kerry supporters would even be assigned to carry out such a mission - establish a viable bush alternative candidate to offset the nader effect on their own party.  nothing illegal about that.

it's interesting that the simple fact of more choices and a broader american opinion set - arguably more accurately representing a democratic scoiety than the apparent near monoculture of bush supporters - is exactly the biggest danger to a successful democratic election.  “successful” - getting the government that most accurately reflects the spectrum of our population.  it's such a direct paradox, it's scary. 

of course, that assumes that nader effect is relevant in this election - ie, that bush does not hold a clear majority otherwise.  that's not a foregone conclusion either way.

so, back to the beginning: where is the alternative candidate for conservative republicans ? a viable one, say, with a potentially significant draw on voters, on the order of a few percent, anyway.  i'm thinking one answer is that there simply can't be, because of the distribution of the (major) candidates along the political spectrum.

in other words, the lack of a viable alternatve candidate to bush is a strong argument that bush appeals strongly to the far right.  seems a trivial enough conclusion, doesn't it ?

additionally, he appeals enough to those more towards the center of the american political spectrum that he is carrying a solid half of the country in a steady string of polls.

which is interesting, because his major opponent is also carrying close to half the country, indicating his appeal to centrists as well.  but then he seems to lose that far left (to nader).  and if kerry tried to appeal to that left, he would lose centrists.  one can argue that kerry is a far more centrist candidate than bush.

so what is going on here ?  perhaps it is not even possible for a viable democratic contender to arise in this political climate, due to the relatively skewed distribution of american political opinion.  in other words, no democrat can appeal to the relatively very wide attitude base of their traditional constituency. 

by comparison, the republicans are enjoying the fruits of a fairly narrow attitudinal spread among their political base.  makes it easy to consolidate, and they can win elections even if their platforms only represent a minority share americans.

now, this is a scary thing - a large, yet minority, number of americans being so narrow minded in the aggregate that they can dictate to a majority of more balanced, and more distributed, countrymen.

it gets scarier - what if the republican base really represents a majority ?  in other words, the majority of americans may very well be solidly behind the current administration's performance.  “scary”, not because i'm making a value judgement about the respective agendas of conservatives and liberals, but because of the huge shift this indicates in american attitudes, and what the mere presence of such large changes can mean.  “scary”, not to indicate fear, but to alert to a shake up.  and of course, large motions of large masses will naturally involve real danger, the nature of which i'll leave aside for now.

yes, a large shift is indicated.  or not ?  have we always been like this ?  one or the other, which is it ?

where am i going with all this ?  well, it's related to a discussion on american attitudes i was having with a friend a couple weeks back.  i think there is strong evidence to support the conclusion that we are no longer the country that we - and the world - think we are.  and i think that there is widespread non-awareness of this fact.  without making any judgements about what way we “should” be, i think it's a danger to everyone - globally, domestically - for this to continue to go unrecognized.

the major point that seems to be in disagreement with majority foreign and domestic opinion:

our country - and its people -  does back the current administration's attitudes.  we either admit that, or else we admit that our checks and balances -  our democratic institutions - are failing.  and in fact, it's this last point that the democrats - or more accurately, non-republicans - are claiming - that the bush administration has effectively hijacked the u.s. government.  to some extent.  in either case, the common statement that “it's not the american people we're against, it's the government“ is either flat out unsupported (in which case the conclusion is that it's americans that need a reality check), or true (in which case a quiet coup has occurred here that needs correction - or not, if we abdicate our democracy).

and this may be the true significance of the nader candidacy.

;-)

this needs one of those "number songs".  it'll happen.  i can't remember a lot of those off the top of my head; the ones i do remember are old.  hmm...

• what's jenny's phone number ?
• what device was bowie obsessed with ?
• and the love potion was ?

you get the idea; contributions encouraged.  this kind of thing sounds like fodder for a dedicated website, and so i bet they are already out there.  i'm not bothering to look.

meanwhile, i wonder if there are wardens out there bidding on who gets the new prisoner.  the place needs some sprucing up, and the menu stinks, y'know ?