The Atlasian Tribune - Mechaman's column

[Barnes]

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Thanks, H, enjoy oblivion.

[Barnes]

Why are National Elections so boring?
by Vepres

I joined Atlasia in late-May 2009. At the time, Atlasia was at the peak of a renaissance of activity, and the elections were close and exciting. PiT and Lief ran against each other in one of the closest Presidential elections our game has had in a long while. In August, the At-large elections were close and exciting. The RPP was shooting for three seats, the two DA incumbents were fighting hard to hold on to their seats, and Jas had an involuntary write-in surge which almost tied him with the first runner-up, SPC. Indeed, as far as activity and competitiveness were concerned, things were looking great. In hindsight, this was an early warning for what was to come.

In October, Lief cruised to reelection, and further decline lead to a relatively unexciting at-large election in December despite the fact that many rising stars such as Barnes and Badger were on the ballot. No upsets, nothing close to one, in fact. Now we seem to be heading towards another boring Presidential election, as Vice-President Bacon King will surely prevail save a huge and unlikely upset by Inks or Xahar. It is clear that national elections are not nearly as interesting as they were and should be (I should note that there are regional elections which do look interesting, however). So how and why did this happen? 

First, we must look back to the June '09 Presidential election which I discussed earlier in this column. At first glance, it looks like the very situation we would want to occur in every election. Despite the closeness of the election, it should have been seen as a warning for future decline in competitiveness. Lief, a very left-wing candidate even by Atlasian standards, ran with another member of his party, Bacon King. PiT, a well respected member of the RPP, ran a coalition ticket with Happy Warrior who, ironically, is now Bacon King's VP in the upcoming election. Despite everything being stacked against the JCP, and everybody expecting a PiT victory, Lief pulled out a one-vote victory. One realizes that even a coalition of the moderates, libertarians, and conservatives, could not overcome the left's dominance in national elections. In October, PiT ran against Lief once again due to an unusual set of circumstances. However, this time, the DA ran their own ticket. This time, the DA overwhelmingly preferenced Lief over PiT, leading to a landslide JCP victory.

One month earlier, despite matching the JCP in numbers, the RPP only elected one of its candidates in the at-large elections, while Fritz and Marokai easily cruised to reelection. In December, Fritz and Badger, the JCP candidates, won easily. Two right-wingers were elected, yes, but they were elected from two different parties that dislike one another. The right, which had been unified for the first time in a long time under the RPP, was fractured once again. Hamilton is certainly partially to blame, but I will refrain from rehashing his acts, as I'm sure you're all familiar with him.

The real culprit is the rigidness in party loyalty. Even moderate JCPers will vote their party line even when their most radical members are on the ballot. The DA, too, while in theory a pragmatic, moderate party, has in practice preferenced the JCP over the RPP in national elections unless there is an RPP/DA unity ticket. You do see this on the right, but this is because without such rigidity, no right-wingers would be elected to national office. True, in theory the ideologies on the right an left are about evenly divided, but again, in practice “centrists” and “loonies” and “game reformers” are simply a center-left wing of the JCP. If people on the left only vote their party line in every national election, and the moderates vote like center-leftists,  than we might as well consider voting a formality, because we all know which party will prevail.

Thanks, man. Good article too, I've noticed many of the same things.

[Barnes]

I'm looking through June's voting booth (which turns out it wasn't decided by 1 vote, really, it was 50-50). I'll let you know what I find.

The Second preference was 50-50, which meant the First preference had to be counted which was 50-49 Lief.

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I voted for PiT because I had just joined Atlaisa, and I was, I admit, a bit ingonant about the candidates. The main reason I voted for PiT was because it was a RPP/DA ticket, but, believe. me I had my own reservations about the ticket (Purple State can attest to that )   

Besides, it doesn't really matter since my vote vote was inavild becuase I didn't register with enough posts.

[Barnes]

Imagine, SPC as President and , myself, Disraeli, Mint in the Senate

[Barnes]

Imagine, SPC as President and , myself, Disraeli, Mint in the Senate

I didn't say it would happen, and you'd be a fine Senator I'm sure.

Thanks. I was mostly joking.