Rand Paul Maximizes GOP Voters

With the current distribution of voters, neither Republican nor Democrats seem to be gaining the upper hand due to policy choices. Nick Gillespie seems to believe the Republicans could actually become an attractive party instead of "bank[ing] on the Democrats sucking all the time." He believes Rand Paul is at the forefront of changing the reputation of the Republican Party. Rand Paul has been reaching out to black communities with issues like the drug war and holding the party closer to it's semi-libertarian rhetoric. What could occur here if the GOP takes after Rand Paul's initiative, is the Republican party could reach into the well of Democratic voters (move left amount the distribution of voters), mainly African-Americans, while also mobilizing formerly disinterested libertarians who had decided to stop voting in general (move right amount the distribution of voters). And as the Republican party, if it truly follows Paul's trend, gains these formerly unachievable votes, the Democrats, retaining their numbing policy of the status quo, would be losing some of their usual voters, due to its venture too far to the center. Such a move by the GOP would be expected by a Party that wished to maximize votes (ideology set aside).

Political Disagreement Preventing Compromise

With the recent government shutdown, American citizens are asking what needs to be done to get us out of this mess. In this CNN article political editor, Paul Steinhauser, reports survey findings indicating that a large majority of Americans didn't think that shutting down the government in an attempt to dismantle the healthcare law was a good idea. Also with the debt ceiling crunch quickly approaching, a national survey published last week showed that a majority favored raising the debt ceiling. According to Steinhauser, 56% of Americans said it would be a bad thing if the debt ceiling was not raised and that it is more important to raise the debt ceiling than to delay Obamacare.

While this article talks more specifically about the heated political battle we find ourselves in between Republicans and Democrats, I found that it also illustrated what Downs describes in his essay on "The Statics and Dynamics of Party Ideologies." Downs restates Hotelling's claim that "the middle" will  always become the target of convergence on either side and essentially believes that political parties try to remain as ideologically distinct from each other as possible so as to attract votes but they, in reality, share the same platforms on several issues. Steinhauser points out in his article the irony that "you have bipartisan consensus among economists that not raising the debt ceiling would be a disaster, but politically you have a divide." This short statement I believe reinforces what Downs is getting at in his essay. Why is it that economists that belong to different parties can reach an agreement, but the political parties themselves cannot. Steinhauser here is elucidating Downs's idea that a "two-party democracy cannot provide stable and effective government unless there is a large measure of ideological consensus among its citizens" (Downs 114). How can we eventually reach a consensus to relaunch our government if the political climate remains a fight between political parties seeking to remain as ideologically opposed as possible?

Madagascar Faces Too Many Parties

This article in the Wall Street Journal looks at the political situation in Madagascar as its government is in transition to try and get back to a state of democracy. The current President, Andry Rajoelina, is a former disc jockey who made his fame in the 1980’s and has since become Madagascar’s youngest leaders after the military coup overthrew the government in 2009. Madagascar is an extremely resource rich country and has a significant amount of economic potential that has yet to be harnessed due to Madagascar’s inability to organize. The country is trying to prove that they can restore democratic power without Western military firepower, but the political parties in the country are so varied they cannot seem to focus their efforts. Talks in October yielded over a dozen different parties interested in taking power who have had trouble finding a place to meet because venues are afraid the different parties will get in fistfights. Neighboring countries like South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia are hoping that the numerous parties can find a system of consultation that can resolve the array of issues Madagascar faces. Becker and Olsen would look at these organizational issues as these groups inability to combine their causes. Olsen and Becker would be at odds about whether the large amounts of small groups is hurting or helping their causes. Olsen believes that bigger groups can hurt because the transactional costs are so large that it makes it extremely hard to organize and efficiently accomplish things. Becker believes that there are pros to having larger groups because that means the group has more votes. In this instance it is hard to say who would be right, with so many different political parties vying for power and nobody willing to give up their individual interests it is hard to see how democracy could be a success. Olsen would urge these political parties to put their individual interests aside because maximizing their interests would hurt the group overall. Ultimately, it seems that there may be a balance between having small groups with united interests and large groups that can represent close to a majority of the population. Madagascar will have to find some stand out political parties that can organize themselves and represent the population, but not too big of a group that they once again become inefficient.