Question: What if the Republican and Democratic Parties would split into several smaller parties for some reason?


My basis for this scenario were the descriptions of the two major parties on politics1.com:

"While prominent Democrats run the wide gamut from the near democratic-socialist left (Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich and the Congressional Progressive Caucus) and traditional liberals (Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry) to the center-right (Joe Lieberman, the Congressional Blue Dog Coalition and the New Democrat Network) to the GOP-style conservative right (Charlie Stenholm and Gene Taylor), most fall somewhere into the pragmatic Democratic Leadership Council's "centrist" moderate-to-liberal style (Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle)."

"Leading Republicans fall into several different ideological factions: traditional conservatives (President George W. Bush, Denny Hastert, Bill Frist and the Club for Growth), the Religious Right (Trent Lott, John Ashcroft, the National Federation of Republican Assemblies and the Christian Coalition), the old Nixon/Rockefeller "centrist" or "moderate" wing (Colin Powell, George Pataki, the Republican Main Street Partnership, the Republican Leadership Council and the Republican Mainstream Committee), and libertarians (Ron Paul and the Republican Liberty Caucus)."


I´m a bit confused by Howard Dean and John Kerry (recently added). For example, is Dean really supposed to fall into the "pragmatic Democratic Leadership Council's "centrist" moderate-to-liberal style"? In the end, I decided to leave both of them out.

US citizens only please

And how I am supposed to see the results of the poll? ;-)

Can I vote for "Will not vote"?

-Uncondtionally pull every single soldier out of Vietnam

Good idea.

-End all financial and supplies support for the South Vietnamese regime

Good idea.

-End all diplomatic ties to the South Vietnamese regime

Bad idea.

-Embargo the South Vietnamese regime

Bad idea.

-End the draft

Good idea.

-Arrest LBJ, MacNamera and most of the leaders of the military-industrial complex and offer them to the North in exchange for the release of the POWs.

Bad idea.

I´m talking here about the future, not the past. So, the Whigs don´t count.

Lesser of two evils: Quimby
But with free choice I'd go for Fat Tony... he's ruling the cioty anyway, could just as well go for it officially *G*

And I always thought Monty Burns is REALLY running the city...

I'm changing my avater to Democrat, even though I agree with very little of the Democratic Party platform.  They are definitely the lesser of two evils.

I've come to this conclusion primarily because I find myself hoping fervently for a Kerry win.  The reasons are two - 1) I think my economic freedoms are in very little danger from the left wing of the Democrat party, while I think my personal freedoms (what few one has in America) are in dire danger from Bush and the Christian Right.  and 2)  I cannot bear to be in the same party as the above mentioned Christians.

Welcome on the dark side, Luke. ;-)

Call me a racist, but I don´t vote for frogs. :-D

I'd vote for neither, instead I'd do a write-in for the Sea Captain.

Aye!

Speaking about the Simpsons... what about a Kang vs. Kodos (vs. Ross Perot) poll?

Interesting:
The CDU won 55 out of 60 districts. If they had only won 54  districts, CDU + FDP would have reached a majority! (54 + 7 = 61 out of 121 seats)
In this case the CDU would lose 1 extra ("Uberhang-") seat, and the PDS as well as the SPD 1 compensation ("Ausgleichs-")seat, thus reducing the total number of seats from 124 to 121.

Yeah, I heard that too. We Germans with our funny electoral systems!

Preliminary election results:

Brandenburg (turnout: 56.6%)
SPD 31.9% / 33 seats
PDS 28.0% / 29 seats
CDU 19.4% / 20 seats
DVU 6.1% / 6 seats
Greens 3.6% / 0 seats
FDP 3.3% / 0 seats

It is expected that the SPD/CDU coalition will be continued, but we shouldn´t completely outrule the possibility of a SPD/PDS coalition, although this seems more or less unlikely at the moment.


Saxony (turnout: 59.6%)
CDU 41.1% / 55 seats
PDS 23.6% / 31 seats
SPD 9.8% / 13 seats
NPD 9.2% / 12 seats
FDP 5.9% / 7 seats
Greens 5.1% / 6 seats

At the moment, it is expected that the SPD will join a coalition with the CDU, because CDU + FDP would need exactly one additional seat to have a majority.

Option #3 for me.

Mainly because I´m against the death penalty in general.

You may find these two links interesting:
http://www.mherrera.org/newcountries.htm
http://www.mherrera.org/list.htm

According to this site there is a possibility of more than 50% that the following nations will become independent some day:
Western Sahara
Palestine
Northern Cyprus
Kosovo
Montenegro
Chechnya
Iraqi Kurdistan (probably the Iraqi part of Kurdistan only, without any Turkish oder Iranian territory???)
Bougainville
Somaliland
Southern Sudan
New Caledonia

Additionally, this site gives a Korean unification a possibility of 80%.

But ontopic again: the state elections in Sachsen and Brandenburg are next Sunday. Are there any new polls available?

The latest polls I found:

Brandenburg (FGW, Sept. 10)
SPD 29%
PDS 27%
CDU 23%
DVU 6%
Greens 6%
FDP 5%
Others 4%

Saxony (IfM Leipzig, Sept. 11)
CDU 44%
PDS 19%
SPD 14%
NPD 7%
Greens 7%
FDP 6%
Others 3%

Um, it seems that the Republican vote is split between Badnarik und Peroutka, while almost all Democrats voted for Cobb. Am I right? I find it interesting that the liberal vote isn´t split as well (between Cobb and Nader).

So, now what is this supposed to be???

I think I will handle it like a "fun topic". That said, I voted for Saddam. He was so funny in Hot Shots and Hot Shots 2, especially in the latter one.

do Nader and Cobb have any big differences on any issues?

Cobb is more to the left

According to the Political Compass he´s slightly more conservative than Nader:

I hope this thread will not mysteriously disappear as it happened with the last one I started here.

Looks like the rightwing nationalist movements has arived in Germany too

Well, they were always here. Just remember the 12.9% success of the DVU in Saxony-Anhalt in the year 1998. Fortunately, they often survive only one term and get kicked out again with the following election.

Latest poll from Saxony:

CDU 44%
PDS 23%
SPD 12%
NPD 7%
Greens 6%
FDP 5%

This will become a weird election. According to this poll the CDU will be still the largest party by far, but they would would lose nearly 13% (1999: 56.9%) as well as their majority in the legislature.

The number of parties in the parliament would double, with the FDP and the Greens breaking the 5%-clause the first time in Saxony since the election of 1990 and the morons from the NPD breaking this threshold the first time in ANY state since the early 70ies.

You're from Germany and I suppose you should know better than me but the Nazi party was the National Socialist German Workers Party. That's what my dictionary says.

Yes, I know that and I never disputed that.

Also the following link takes you to a speech by Rudolph Hess, one of Hitler's thugs.
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/hess1.htm
He uses the word socialist or socialism about 12 times and always in the context of German goals or philosophy, and always in an approving manner.

No, he doesn´t. He talks about National Socialism. And that IS indeed a difference.

Let me put it that way: National Socialists were socialists in name only. That´s what I tried to say with my analogy about East Germany. The "German Democratic Republic" wasn´t a democratic republic but a totalitarian dictatorship.

Most people who voted for the "National Socialist German Workers Party" weren´t even "workers", but members of the upper middle class. The man who named Hitler Chancellor was President Paul von Hindenburg, a former general of World War I and staunch conservative. After they came to power the first party they banned didn´t belong to the democratic spectrum of the Weimar Republic, in fact it was the Communist Party. The Nazis thought that Marxism was inherently evil. They also banned all labor unions and they imprisoned all active socialists and communists in concentration camps (in fact, that was the original purpose of the concentration camps, they started with detaining Jews there much later).

I would say on economic policies the Nazis were neither very leftist nor very conservative, but quite centrist.

NYC / New England, followed by Pacific Coast / Hawaii

I can only say that the Nazi party is the National Socialist German Workers Party. Look it up in your dictionary. The Nazi's gave themselves that name not me.

Yeah, and one of the first things the Nazis did when they came to power was to ban the Communist Party of Germany. Would you call a Nazi a "socialist" or "communist" he would probably beat you senseless.

The official name of East Germany was "German Democratic Republic", bit it wasn´t a democracy at all.

Latest poll results

Brandenburg: http://www.election.de/cgi-bin/showpoll.pl?name=ltw_bb

Saxony: http://www.election.de/cgi-bin/showpoll.pl?name=ltw_sn

SPD voters staying at home because of the economic reforms?

Yes, that would be one of the reasons.

Aditionally, the victory of the CDU was predicted by every single opinion poll. So, it was not a very close race. I think many voters simply stayed home, because the winner was clear from the beginning.

About the NPD: Yes, these are good times for splinter parties who seek protest votes. The electorate is very much polarized and also in outrage over "Agenda 2010" and the "Hartz reforms".

I´m afraid what will happen in two weeks in Saxony. For some mysteroius reasons the NPD was always relatively strong there since re-unification.

Dean