Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: puborectalis who wrote (159581)	7/10/2001 3:44:45 PM
From: ColtonGang	Respond to of 769667

VERY BAD NEWS FOR BUSH AND GOP........Game Theory and The Political Centipede Or, Why the Republicans Will Steal Everything That Isn't Nailed Down In The Next Two Years "The race is not to the swift -- but that's how the smart money bets." Following the designation of Mr. Bush as President-Elect and the election of the new Congress, the smart money seems to be betting that Bush will be a one-term president and that the Democrats have an excellent chance of retaking the Congress in '02. We will review some of the reasons for that judgment, but the main purpose of this piece is to explore how the Republicans are likely to respond -- assuming that the corporate Republican party acts as a rational, self-interested agent as those terms are understood in game theory. Why do the future chances of the Republican party look so poor? The two nineteenth-century presidents who lost the popular vote were one-term presidents, and Rutherford Hayes, whose electoral victory was as cloudy as that of Mr. Bush, was never really accepted as a legitimate president. The Congress could not be much more evenly divided, and the party in power usually loses seats in the by-election, all the moreso when the presidential election is close. The conservative vote has been eroding steadily since the mid-eighties. Mr. Nader got a larger percentage of the popular vote than any other left third-party candidate since Gene Debs ran from prison in 1920. The suburbs split evenly, while the cities went strongly Democratic, throwing all of the urbanized states to Mr. Gore. And while the electoral college favors the rural and thus unpopulous states, even that is not a sure thing. The electoral college could just as easily give the victory to a candidate who wins the big states in a squeak, losing the small states by a big margin, and so losing the popular vote. Mr. Bush's attempt to build a Republican constituency in the center and among people of color and Hispanics seems to have failed comprehensively. More issues will inevitably come out about the Florida vote and other aspects of this election. Nothing is certain in politics or in life, but all this suggests that the odds are against the Republicans retaining power after 2004; and the longer-term influences -- the demographic shift toward urbanized states and the move of popular opinion somewhat toward the left -- suggest that the Republicans might be out of power for a long time.