My Letter to Michael Moore
Posted 8:39 AM

Michael Moore's sent a letter to Wesley Clark urging him to run. Along the same vein, here's my letter to Michael Moore:

Dear Michael Moore and Friends of Mike,

The Democratic Primaries work in such a bizzare way that the likelyhood of them choosing a candidate that can beat Bush, in this fragemented race, is very low.

I've spoken to Dr. Steven Brams, one of the nation's foremost experts in voting theory, and political theory. http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/faculty/brams/brams_home.html

If we urged a political theorist and mathematician, such as Steven, to design an alternate Democratic ballot and counting system, we could really get at the "candidate that is most likely to get voted for over bush in the general election". I encourage Michael to call him and visit him. He's in the neighborhood.

From my conversations with him, the question you'd ask voters on the ballot is something like this:

"Check off all of the candidates you would support in the General Election against George Bush?"

This is how you find the candidate that the majority of voters would support over Bush.... not "pick one". Pick one can result in split votes among centrist candidates, like Dean, Kerry and Clark. In fact, with Clark running - Lieberman is now looking like he's got a chance in this race. "Pick one" frequently throws the vote to a candidate with a strong special interest, rather than a person who can beat Bush.

The results of the MoveON poll give you an idea of how this is done: http://moveonpac.org/moveonpac/report.html

Detailed info on election methods that you should read if you want to get involved in politics: http://www.electionmethods.org/

How approval voting can work in primaries: http://www.approvalvoting.com/primaries.html

In addition to endorsing a candidate that will split the centrist vote, you may want to consider endorsing a system that will result in the candidate that can win.
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