The Hill has this article by Randall G. Holcombe suggesting that it is conceivable that the Libertarian Party 2020 presidential nominee could win the election. Holcombe is a research fellow for the Independent Institute, which is a libertarian-leaning think tank.
Uh… right!
Article completely misses that each STATE gets ONE vote.
The one state – one vote aspect makes for some unique situations, especially where states are evenly split (more likely in smaller states with even numbers of representatives) and have to abstain.
Another aspect is that the House chooses the president from the top three electoral vote recipients, but the Senate chooses the VP from the top TWO VP electoral vote winners. If an LP president wins in this manner, the VP would likely have to be from one of the old parties, making for the strangest pairing since Jefferson and Burr.
I haven’t read the article yet, but the comments about the article suggest that the LP candidate could trigger the 12th amendment, with the election being thrown into the House. I don’t know if this will happen in 2020, or if the LP will be the party that will do this but with the way the old parties are conducting themselves and the state of their respective numbers, I believe the odds are greater than 50/50 that, sometime during our lifetime, we’ll see the 12th Amendment get triggered in this way.
Andrew- I have given up trying to figure out why people write stuff about things they apparently have not researched and know little or nothing about.
How many super-timebomb ANTI-Democracy math possibilities in the Electoral College ???
Again – 750,000 DEAD in 1861-1866 due to 40 pct popular votes for Lincoln in 1860.
How many MINORITY RULE USA Prezs since 1789 ???
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USA voter = USA citizen, 18+ years old — NO criminal/mental rigged stuff.
PR and Appv and TOTSOP
RT and PRV + TAOAHL!!!!!!!!!
The article suffers from a number of serious problems. One was pointed out above. Another is that the LP has participated in twelve presidential elections and never once received a single electoral vote other than one faithless elector pledged to Richard Nixon in 1972. Nor has it come close – 11% in Alaska in 1980 was as close to a plurality as the party ever got. Gary Johnson came close to 10% in NM, still far short of a plurality in a state where he had been governor for two terms. And that was a low population state which would have been highly unlikely to yield a twelfth amendment scenario much less an electoral college win. The author’s suggestion of Texas seems exponentially less likely.
It’s plausible that some ex-governors could seek the party’s nomination in 2020. However, Chaffee was governor of deep blue Rhode Island, which will be even less likely to give him a plurality than purple-ish New Mexico was to give Johnson. Like NM, RI is elector-poor. Were Weld to jump back over to the LP, as is rumored he will, it’s unlikely he could win the electors of deep blue Mass. Mark Sanford is likewise unlikely to win deep red SC. Were Johnson to make a third run, after failing to win NM in two runs for President and coming in third for US Senate, it’s unlikely he would carry it this time either.
Michigan is a higher population state, and tippable, but it’s unlikely Amash could win its electors. US House members haven’t fared very well as third party candidates; Ron Paul in 1988, Bob Barr and Cynthia McKinney in 2008 and Virgil Goode in 2012 all failed to significantly outperform what may have been expected of their party’s nominees. Amash would be unlikely to win any electoral votes, much less enough to force a 12th Amendment scenario.
Nor is there any reasonable expectation that, say, Arvin Vohra, Kim Ruff or Adam Kokesh could win electoral votes as the party’s nominee. Given that no such plausible scenario exists there’s no reason to limit the party’s ticket to only running in a few states, a strategy which doesn’t help the party’s candidates in all the other states which would be ignored. Nor would there be any great benefit to announcing a strategy of trying to win a small number of states in order to send the election into the House, since very few voters pay attention to such machinations.
But supposing the election did somehow end up in the House, it seems equally unlikely that a Libertarian or any third candidate would benefit. Congressmen and women may find themselves pressured to vote for the candidate of their party, the winner of the state’s popular vote, the winner of the national popular vote, or the plurality winner of the national electoral vote. They’d have no similar pressure to vote for someone who is none of these things.
The one practical advice in the column – campaign in a small handful of states – is not justified by these kinds of odds. The real question here is why The Hill would entertain this nonsense.
Since Day 1 of the LP —
How many freedom LAWS have been enacted due to the LP ??? [including ballot access laws]
How many statist LAWS have been repealed due to the LP ???
How many LP cult freak stunt ego candidates – esp Elephant types ???
I agree with Casual Observer and Ed Ng. The fact that a reputable publication like The Hill would publish such sheer fantasy is kind of bewildering in and of itself.
Sadly, given the extreme polarization of our politics, the 2020 presidential election — unlike the opportunity that existed in 2016 — is likely to be a very disappointing one for our country’s nationally-organized third parties, an election in which we could see the Libertarian Party experience the kind of dramatic drop off in support experienced by the Socialist Party’s Norman Thomas in 1936, when the country’s leading third-party saw its popular vote plunge from 884,000 votes to a mere 187,000 votes. And that’s probably true whether there’s a William Lemke-type new party candidacy or not.
I wish that wasn’t the case, but we should brace ourselves for such an outcome in this environment.
DGR- the extreme polarization of our politics
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due to multiple ANTI-Democracy minority rule gerrymanders
USA Congress – both houses
ALL 99 houses in the 50 State legislatures
Many local legislative bodies – esp in larger pop areas
USA Prez Electoral College
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partisan exec and judic hacks
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MAJOR violations of Separation of Powers – esp Congress impeachment, Prez veto and pardon
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Unequal ballot access laws
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FATAL BASIC structure ROT
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PR and AppV and TOTSOP and EQUAL ballot access laws
See USA 1859-1860 and Spain 1931-1936.
“due to multiple ANTI-Democracy minority rule gerrymanders
USA Congress – both houses” – Demo Rep
How does one gerrymander a state? The House of Representatives… yes but the Senate?
Casual Observer,
I take it you have never been to West Virginia?
@ Casual Observer:
I predict that if DC is made a state that you could see state “gerrymandering” This could cause a movement to create new states by dividing up old states in an effort to “balance” the Senate, similar to what happened before the Civil War.
I found the History Channel series How The States Got Their Shapes to be very interesting casual viewing. I haven’t investigated whether it is available online.
ALL *area* *representation* has been gerrymander stuff —
Anglo-American history –
English House of Commons late 1200s — TO NOW
Brit colonial legis bodies 1600s — 1st VA 1618 – plantation districts along the James River
States 1776-1789
USA regime 1787-1789
Added States 1789-now
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1/2 or less votes x 1/2 rigged gerrymander areas = 1/4 or less CONTROL.
Super baaaad before 1964 SCOTUS gerrymander cases
Now super baaaad again due to SCOTUS Rucho op late June 2019 AND TOP 2 PRIMARIES.
ALL Civil WAR math stuff — gerrymander OLIGARCHS with MONARCH *leaders* go power mad nuts.
1860 FREE/SLAVE STATE GERRYMANDERS = 750,000 DEAD IN 1861-1866.
1865 WINNING OLIGARCHS KEPT THE GERRYMANDER ROT GOING – ESP WITH ADDING MORE LOOOOW POP STATES – TO RIG CONTROL OF USA SENATE [WITH MATH EFFECTS IN ELECTORAL COLLEGE].
IE — thus– 700 PLUS YEARS OF GERRYMANDER OLIGARCH LAWS / MACHINATIONS —
one super- EVIL Gerrymander SUPER- BIG LIE — nonstop brainwashing in math moron Skooools / media.
IE NOOOO *real* Democracy – just corrupt gerrymander oligarchs enacting nonstop special interest gangster laws.
IT SHOWS NOW IN THE NEAR $$$ 40 TRILLION IN ALL GOVT DEBTS = COMING USA TOTAL ECON CRISIS.
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PR and AppV and TOTSOP
@ Demo Rep:
Israel elects its entire Knesset at-large with proportional voting. It seems every election now, they have to negotiate a coalition government. Be careful what you wish for.
WZ –
Israel — FATAL Parl system [copied from FATAL Brit Parl system in 1948-1949]
top hacks having both legis and exec powers — ie which top party HACK gets which top exec HACK office.
MASS ignorance about BASIC stuff — due to totally rotted skoools / polisci brainwashing.
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PR Legis and
NONPARTISAN AppV exec/judic and
TOTSOP [ from 1748 Spirit of the Laws – Montesquieu — French original – multiple editions]
Copy and paste on computer screen – to memorize.
“I take it you have never been to West Virginia?” – Ed Ng
Sure! I bought my dentures there! But seriously folks… West Virginia came to be as the result of a conflict wherein the state losing the area was not asked if it approved of the separation. It also took place some 156 years ago. I suppose one could make the case that NOT admitting the Dakota Territory as one state not two was a gerrymander but my point still remains that once a state is in the Union there is no way to gerrymander it because there are no Senate districts. Whether WALTER ZIOBRO is correct that there may be a spate of new states being created from existing ones remains very “out there” speculation.
@ Demo Rep:
So. okay, Israel could elect a President with actual executive power separate from the Knesset. But, then they have to decide on what method to use to elect such a President.
Electoral College plus Sword of Solomon seems appropriate.
I agree with Ed Ng’s analysis, and I’ll answer his question – “The real question here is why The Hill would entertain this nonsense.”
Even though The Hill is rated as “center” or “slightly left”, many of its staffers suffer from the same Trump Derangement Syndrome that most of the media (both mainstream and online, including Shep and others at Fox) suffer from. The result is that they are ALL desperate to defeat Trump. They look at the D field and see no chance that Pocahontas or Bernie can beat Trump, and that Uncle Joe is damaged goods, as is Kamala. Beto and the others are also unelectable. They pretty much are flailing around looking for any other slight chance to defeat Trump, and thus Holcombe invents this fantasy and The Hill says “sure, print it, we’re desperate”.
All of that said, Tulsi is the only Democrat Party candidate that might defeat Trump. But she’ll never get the chance – the deep state will never let her become the nominee because of the risk of losing trillions of dollars of graft that goes to the MIC if Tulsi were to get elected.
I am of the opinion that our constitutional republic is in its dying days. It might take a few decades before the death of the USofA occurs, but IMO it will happen in my children’s lifetime (I’m old, about to turn 70). I just hope that the transition to whatever comes next is as peaceful as the breakup of the Soviet Union was.
WZ – all exec/judic offices —
NON-partisan Appv – pending Condorcet.
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Should be at least 3 exec officers per area – to watch each other – for illegal machinations.
@ Don Wills:
I think you are right. The Democrats are realizing that any of their candidates are surprisingly weak against a bombastic Trump. They are getting really desperate. We see this in the latest impeachment attempt. Whatever they have on the Ukrainian matter only serves to weaken Biden as well.
I have for a long time observed parallels between Roman and US history. We are entering the Caesarian period. Our constitutional republic is well on way to becoming an elective, and somewhat chaotic, monarchy that the Empire was.
“I just hope that the transition to whatever comes next is as peaceful as the breakup of the Soviet Union was.” – Don Wills
Me, too! If it is like the transition from Imperial Russia to Soviet Russia… Lord help us!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Republic
How many FATAL Defects in the RR ???
Yeah, not gonna happen. The LP is too weak right now. Many people voted for Trump because they hated Clinton so much, and vice versa. Thurs parties were up a tick, but nowhere near being relevant. It will be the same with Trump vs Crazy Bernie or Creepy Joe.
@ me:
Third parties WERE relevant in 2016. Gary Johnson flipped 10 states, and Jill Stein flipped at least 4. Don’t think that that didn’t matter.
Whether they can repeat in 2020 remains to be seen. One the one hand, the partisan sentiment is so strong, third parties may get less votes. On the other hand, the closeness of the vote in critical swing states may be such that just a few votes is needed to have impact on the outcome.
What makes you think they flipped these states? Do you believe all Johnson votes would have otherwise gone to Trump or that all Stein votes would have otherwise gone to Clinton?
HOW MANY USA CONGRESS SEATS FLIPPED BY ANY THIRD PARTIES/INDEPENDENTS IN 2016 OR 2018 ???
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PR AND APPV AND TOTSOP
Personally, I know a few Republicans who voted for Johnson because they hated Trump. Likewise, I know a few Libertarians who voted for Trump because they hated Johnson and Weld. I doubt many Republicans voted for Stein. Some Democrats did, for sure.
It’s erroneous to classify people this way. Some people who supported Sanders were so turned off by the way he was treated and the general stink of corruption from the Clinton camp that they supported anyone but Clinton. For some of them this meant staying home, for some Stein, for some Johnson or even crossing over to Trump. An actual majority of those who voted for Johnson and Stein indicated they would rather have not voted at all than vote for Clinton or Trump. Of the Johnson supporters who would have voted anyway, about roughly equal numbers indicated Clinton and Trump were their second choice. And even among Stein voters, many felt that Clinton was even worse than Trump, although more probably felt Trump was worse.
Of the sample I took after the election of Castle voters the overwhelming majority listed Johnson as their second choice followed closely by James Hedges! 😉