Ok here is the problem with Gibbs et al

[nadinbrzezinski]

We live in a representative democracy. We all know that.

Now ask yourselves, how many people vote during the primary? Be honest, how many vote in a primary? Now how many people vote in off year elections? And what is the average in Presidential elections?

The crux of the problem is there. Your politicos are not answering to the majority who does want universal health care. They are answering to a small slice of the potential electorate that happens to be to the right of the majority. And until that dynamic changes, I fear a lot of the changes most of us want won't come. Why? If I am representative (insert name here) and my district tends to vote mostly right of center, what do you think I am going to do as a representative? It does not matter that the MAJORITY of the residents in my district want single payer... those that vote do not. And most people want to keep their jobs.

Now Gibbs was off base, and so are the DLC fans round these parts. But until voting patterns change (why I think the Australian solution, yep mandatory leading to 95% particiation) things will not truly change. They don't have a reason to, since the current electorate will definitely punish them for doing what the majority in the country wants, but does not participate in the system, hence no consequences.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Mandatory participation in elections would be great....but I think the politicians would never go

for it..since they would probably be the losers.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. It was not easy to do that in Australia

but when it happened, they were in a similar logjam with similar low participation.

I heard it on NPR one day, it is now seriously spoken off by both right leaning and left leaning political Scientists, so it MIGHT trickle down to the actual policy.

It would probably also require an Amendment... and if that is the case... forget it.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. If only it could happen here...

We cannot even get an ERA Amendment passed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. We might actually if things continue to go the way they are

but to decrease the polarization we might need to increase participation.

Amendments like the 25th, (succession) passed easily... controversial ones have not. If this is seen as a non-controversial...

Just don't count on that.

[provis99]

3. Party preferences of nonvoters is identical to that of voters.

Increasing voting turnout won't change the vote one bit.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Not according to political scientists but that's ok

also we get the radical effect during the primaries, due to that extremely low participation.