GOP Senator switches to Democrats

[Bob The Mercenary]

On second thought, isn't this a good thing for the Republicans? With the vacancy in the Supreme Court, the one minority vote needed in committee for a nominee to pass through is no longer there. Or at least until someone else steps up.

[Fenris]

Originally Posted by Magus

If he became a Democrat it would be difficult to vote for him over someone who has been a Democrat already, however. Yes, he is a very moderate Republican but it would be hard to argue he is more liberal than someone who is already a member of the Democratic party

The difference is that the people he represents don't tend to elect the most liberal/conservative candidate. The fact that Arlen Specter here has been in office for 30 years is proof enough of that.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Male Human Fighter

There are a couple reasons for that, but to my understanding the primary reason for the two party system is that it's so well supported by the American election system. I'm not really capable of explaining this, and I don't want to misrepresent anything so someone please feel free to correct me, but I remember reading that the electoral college, in that it requires a certain percentage over the amount of votes garnered by the lesser party, renders a multi-party system impractical for a number of reasons, the foremost that I can recall being that by having more parties it becomes more difficult to achieve that percentage necessary for victory and would actually give the individual voter less say, because the vote would then go to the gentleman who throw the actual electoral representatives that each state's party sends to throw in their state's electoral votes.

Essentially, the main issue with a multiparty system in America is that we already have one, but it doesn't work because of the massive power held by the two major parties. You CAN vote Green Party, and Nader will be right there promising you legalized pot until the day he dies. But there's a notion that voting third party is a waste of your vote, which becomes self-fulfilling as people fail to vote for them. The system is really geared to the status quo and changing it will be a long and arduous process which will likely never happen in our lifetimes, or even the foreseeable future.