— I found a couple of things striking about the French election, being basically ignorant of amphibian politics:
* Chirac, the candidate with the most votes, only polled 19% of the vote. While all the media are saying Chirac is the heavy favorite to take the run-off, the difference between 19 and 51 isn’t much less than the difference between 17 and 51, so Jean-Marie Le Pen might just take it all; a little mold on the wheat, and anything can happen.
* Left parties are taking a beating all over Europe. Although the elites and the media say that Europe doesn’t approve of our war on terrorists, the people themselves are saying something very different, and refusing to return their Chomskyites to power.
* The French have a run-off system. What a change it would make in America if we held a run-off every time there’s no clear winner in the presidential election. Minor parties like the reforms and the Greens could run vigorous campaigns without having to deal with the vote-siphoning question, and the level of debate would probably be a lot higher. I don’t assume this means that Al Gore would be in the White House now (scary thought, that) because Bush had Libertarians and Reforms draining his votes down, but a reform like that would be most worthwhile if we could ditch the electoral college as well. But election reform in America today means checking IDs at the polls, an issue that’s still a hot potato due to illegally registered Democrats who swing elections in California. But I can dream.
OK, so that’s three things, shoot me.
“the level of debate would probably be a lot higher”
What evidence do you have of that? The level of debate in France and other nations with proportional representation doesn’t seem to be much “higher” than here in the US. If anything, it seems that they can get away with ignoring much larger swaths of the electorate.
Run-offs don’t have anything to do with Prop Rep, do they? We have them here in most local races, after all. Just because an idea comes from Europe doesn’t mean it’s great, and it doesn’t automatically mean it’s crap, either. The two major parties have a stranglhold on the system, and that’s bad. Run-offs would eliminate that hold, to a large extent, and that’s good.