pudge's Journal: Physics of the Jedi Mind Trick

Democratic strategist Kathy Allen said on local political talk show Up Front, of Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate Aaron Dixon:

You have to be credible. You have to not be an embarrassment. If you're an embarrassment as a Green member, you're not going to get any votes of the Greens.

Can Jedi Mind Tricks work over television? Maybe digital TV, but not analog, as the signal becomes too lossy?

The fact is Greens vote in strong numbers for their candidate whenever the Democratic candidate is simply unpalatable to them. And since Maria Cantwell voted for and supported the war in Iraq, Dixon will likely get a lot of votes in Washington.

Her next sentence, though, was hilarious: The Greens, if anything, won't vote. That's just as bad for Cantwell, of course ...

Yeah

[Sheetrock]

That's really not a very good strategy for success. I read that and I remember 2000 (and 2004) when the Democrats were putting out their "If you vote for a third party you're throwing your vote away" message. A Democratic strategist presuming to speak for the Greens could also come across quite arrogantly and may very well alienate voters that don't like being talked down to.

It's not going to win any more committed third-party voters for sure, and the ones who are on the fence are probably there for the

Re:Yeah

[Dark Coder]

The best way to get the majority vote is to carefully cultivate the centrists and yet pull in a sizeable chunk of your opponents' fringe voters. The diehards (left and right) are essentially offlimits.

"Throwing away" your vote by NOT voting Democratic is a badly timed strategy in ANYBODY's politcal playbook. If I'm not mistaken, 3rd party did not get a sizeable increase nor portion over the previous election, since John Anderson then Ross Perot ran as an Independent.