HOWARD SCHULTZ AND THIRD-PARTY CANDIDATES

Democrats are up in arms this week because former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced he may run for president next year as an Independent.  Their perception is that he couldn’t possibly win but could definitely pull enough votes from the Democratic nominee to ensure a Donald Trump re-election. 

Schultz was a Democrat, but he won’t run in their primaries.  Neither party is acceptable to him, so it’s “a plague on both their houses.” 

In an episode of “House of Cards” the issue of third parties was addressed.  One character said, “Third parties are the future and always will be.” 

The last third party candidate to get even one electoral vote was George Wallace, who got 38 in 1968.  But third parties are definitely spoilers.  In 2016 Green Party candidate Jill Stein got 130,000 votes in the three Rust Belt states Hillary Clinton lost by 77,000 votes.  Those electoral votes cost her the presidency.

In the 2000 election third-party candidate Ralph Nader got 77,000 votes in Florida.  Democrat Al Gore lost that state and the presidency by 600 votes. 

Some “progressives,” blame Gore and Clinton for not being able to overcome Stein and Nader.  Their logic is twisted like a pretzel. 

In 2017 I exchanged several e-mails with Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern.  I asked him to sponsor a bill to have a run-off in American presidential elections.  I cited the system in France.  All their candidates run in August, and the two highest vote-getters run against each other two weeks later.  There are no spoiler candidates  It’s a choice of two.  There’s no option to vote for a candidate who can’t win. 

The Congressman was very polite, but ultimately he blew me off.  He said he was going to work on eliminating the electoral college.  Please.  This is what has to be done to accomplish that task: 

“The electoral college is enshrined in our Constitution, which means getting rid of it requires a constitutional amendment. That’s a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate and the ratification of three-fourths (38) of the 50 states. 

That will never happen.  

A friend from Oregon posted an article on Facebook about a new plan: the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC).  Some states have signed on to it. 

“The NPVIC is our best chance to change the current system because the Constitution allows states to decide how to allocate their electors on their own. Most have chosen to award all of their electors to whichever candidate wins the vote within their state; but it doesn’t have to be that way. The NPVIC is an agreement between states to award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.”

This is a clever end-around the current electoral college method of selecting a president.  But think about it.  Donald Trump won West Virginia by 42 points.  Hillary Clinton won Massachusetts by 27 points.  You’re going to tell electors in a state that went overwhelmingly for a candidate they have to give their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote?  The backlash would be incredible.  

A black friend of mine who graduated summa cum laude from MIT is a proponent or the ranked-choice voting system.   

“A ranked-choice voting system (RCV) is an electoral system in which voters rank candidates by preference on their ballots. If a candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, he or she is declared the winner. If no candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated. First-preference votes cast for the failed candidate are eliminated, lifting the second-preference choices indicated on those ballots. A new tally is conducted to determine whether any candidate has won a majority of the adjusted votes. The process is repeated until a candidate wins an outright majority. This system is sometimes referred to as an instant runoff voting system.”

Did your eyes glaze over reading this explanation? Mine did.  If it sounds confusing, that’s because it probably is, unless you graduated summa cum laude from MIT (insert smiley face here).

My plan is much simpler.  Have a run-off, eliminate the spoilers who will take away electoral votes from the candidate who should win, and be done with it.

Of course, all this is an exercise in futility. 

The Pope just reaffirmed celibacy for Catholic priests.  The Church is resistant to change.  The American political system is no better.  We haven’t been an agrarian economy since the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago, but we’re still voting in November because it was after the harvest.  

What are you gonna do?   

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