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The U.S. reaping these benefits from their two party system is confounded by the primaries. The "centre" of each primary is with respect to the party platform,
by cthor 10y ago
The U.S. reaping these benefits from their two party system is confounded by the primaries. The "centre" of each primary is with respect to the party platform, not the general population.
Presidential candidates' optimal strategy is to be centre of the party base in primaries, then centre of the entire country in the general election. (And they have to do this while avoiding accusations of flip flopping.)
(And there are other confounders that apply regardless of voting system. Nobody involved is working with perfect information and nobody is a perfectly rational actor.)
- blowski 10y agoIt's affected by personalities. A lot of people probably voted for Trump the person, rather than Trump's policies. If that's true, his position on the diagram isn't all that important. I guess this is what you meant by "non-rational actors" - people voting for policies they don't like because they like the person saying them.
- caspianm 10y agoPrimary voters' optimal strategy, if voting within their preferred party, should also be to pick a centre candidate, so they will win. Could get complex if people vote in the opposing party's primary though.