Guy Tuttle and Ass
Global Moderator
 gotta get that VICTORY ROYALE #gamer #memes #LoL
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Posts: 15966 (2.291)
Reg. Date: Mar 2002
Location: California
Gender: Male |
(Originally posted on: 10-17-13 09:20:29 AM)
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I think the next primary season is going to be very interesting. It seems like after this giant split in the House GOP re: the shutdown, a lot of primary challengers for moderate republicans might pop up.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/the-conservative-war-on-the-gop/280637/
Typically I am pretty skeptical when people predict the rise of a third party in the US, because quirks of our electoral process predispose the US to a two-party system. But because of modern America's unusually gerrymandered political landscape, many far-right politicians are quite safe in their districts.
These deep red districts could end up seeing much more vigorous primary races than the actual election, as is sometimes the case in deep blue districts. If the GOP were to officially split the primary season would be less interesting, but the election might be a 3-way contest between a moderate democrat, a moderate republican, and a tea party-type, or even simply a 2-way contest between a republican candidate and a tea party candidate.
In this way these deep red districts might eventually become a type of stronghold for the tea party, which could insulate them from some of the pressures of Duverger's law. It might resemble Canada a little, where the Quebecois party is strong enough in its geographic area to compete against the two major parties, but weak in other parts of the country. The difference is that the Tea Party is spread out over a lot of disparate electorates across the central and southern US and not concentrated in any one area, but again, until the state governments redistrict again (2020), they are fairly well protected in their districts.
Anyway I didn't mean to write so much really, hopefully someone reads it
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