Promising donations, or even endorsements, to politicians in exchange for their signing up to the dominant-assurance-contract-style scheme, would almost certainly be percieved as sketchy / corruption-adjacent, even if it isn’t a violation of campaign finance law. (I think promising conditional donations, even if not done in writing, would indeed be a violation.) It would be better to just have people signing up because they thought it was a good idea, with no money or other favors changing hands.
I don’t think having people sign a literal dominant assurance contract is the load-bearing part of this proposal; therefore the part where people sign a literal contract should be dropped. First, how will you enforce the contract? Sue them if they aren’t sufficiently enthusiastic supporters of the centrist candidate?? This world of endorsemenets and candidate selection doesn’t run on formal legal rules, it runs on political coalition-building. So instead of having a literal contract at the center of your scheme, you should just have a “whisper-network” style setup, where one central organization (perhaps the No Labels campaign) runs the dominant-assurance-contract logic informally (but still with a high degree of trust and rigor). ie, No Labels would individually talk to different congressmen, explain the scheme, ask if they are interested, etc. If the congressmen like the idea of making a coordinated switch to endorsing a No Labels candidate once enough other congressmen have signed on, then No Labels will keep that in mind, and meanwhile keep their support secret. A problem here is that the organization running this scheme would ideally want to have lots of credibility, authority, etc, which as far as I know, No Labels doesn’t currently have.
(There are other situations, like the national popular vote compact, where a literal legal mechanism is the best way to implement the dominant assurance contract idea. But it’s not right for this situation.)
You and I have been talking about flipping senators and congressmen to support a third-party presidential candidate; but is this really the best plan? Won’t congressmen rationally be extremely hesitant to betray their party like this, even if the scheme succeeds? Imagine that, say, two thirds of the senate and congress and whoever, decide to flip their endorsements to a centrist candidate, and that candidate wins the election. There will still be partisian republican-vs-democrat elections for every other role, including the members’ own reelection campaigns. The party organizations (DNC / RNC) and surrounding infrastructure (think tanks, NGOs, etc), of the democrats and republicans will still exist—these party organizations will want to preserve their own existence (after all, they have to keep fighting for all the downballot races, and they have to be ready to run another more-partisian presidential election in 2028!), so they’ll want to punish these No-Labels-dominant-assurance-scheme defectors by ostracising them, refusing to fund their campaigns, funding primary challengers, etc. So, I think trying to get everyone to flip to a temporary third party just for one presidential election would be a doomed prospect—you’d instead have to go even bigger, and somehow try to get everyone to flip to a permanent third party that would endure as a new, dominant political force in american politics for years to come. This, in turn, seems like way too big of a project and too much of a longshot for anyone to pull off in the next few months.
Probably a better idea would be to just try and get EITHER democrats OR republicans to pull off a smaller-scale realignment WITHIN their party—ie, getting a cabal of democrats to agree to switch their endorsement (and their electors at the party convention) from Biden to some more-electable figure like Gavin Newsom (or ideally, someone more centrist than Newsom), or getting a cabal of republicans to switch from Trump to Haley (or, again, someone more centrist). Instead of trying to transform the entire political landscape and summon an entire third-party winning coalition ex nihilo, for this plan you only need a wee bit of elite coordination, similar to how you describe Biden’s suprise comeback in the 2020 primary election. Plus, now you get two shots-on-goal! Since either the republicans or democrats could use this strategy (personally I’d be more optimistic about the democrats’ ability to pull this off, but if moderate republicans somehow manage an anti-trump coup at their convention, more power to them!).
Finally, you might find this blog post by Matthew Yglesias helpful for understanding some of the political details that have led to this weird situation where both parties seem to be making huge unforced errors by nominating unpopular and weak candidates: https://www.slowboring.com/p/why-the-parties-cant-decide Yglesias’s writing in general has influenced my comments above, insofar as he emphasizes the importance of internal coalition politics, dives into the nitty-gritty details of the bargaining / politics behind major decisions, and emphasizes “elite persuation” as a good way of trying to achieve change. Personally, I am a huge fan of nerdy poli-sci schemes like approval voting and quadratic voting, dominant assurance contracts, georgist land-value taxes and carbon taxes, charter cities, “base realignment and closure”-inspired ideas for optimal budget reform, and so forth. But reading a bunch of Slow Boring has given me more of an appreciation for the fact that often the most practical way to get things done is indeed to do a bunch of normal grubby politics/negotiation/bargaining/persuasion (and just try to do politics well). Thus, even when trying to implement some kind of idealized poli-sci scheme, I think it’s important to pay attention to the detailed politics of the situation and try to craft a hybrid approach, to build something with the best chance of winning.
The party organizations (DNC / RNC) and surrounding infrastructure (think tanks, NGOs, etc), of the democrats and republicans will still exist—these party organizations will want to preserve their own existence (after all, they have to keep fighting for all the downballot races, and they have to be ready to run another more-partisian presidential election in 2028!), so they’ll want to punish these No-Labels-dominant-assurance-scheme defectors by ostracising them, refusing to fund their campaigns, funding primary challengers, etc.
One of the points I was thinking about making in the post, but ended up cutting, is that enforcement mechanisms like the ones I propose for a “contract” already seem to exist in practice. That’s essentially the point you’re making in this paragraph — political parties have informal endorsement mechanisms to keep their candidates in line, even if those enforcement mechanisms aren’t specified in writing. Hence this section from my post:
… It seems possible that offering a campaign donation, conditional on agreeing to make an endorsement under certain circumstances, would constitute a violation? Or maybe it would basically be fine-in-practice as long as the agreement is not made in writing? In any case, it might be necessary to abandon the donation strategy, and instead convince some high-profile people to offer their endorsement to congresspeople who agree to the deal, as an alternative “sweetener” if the deal doesn’t go through.
Basically you can think of my post as making a 2-step argument: (1) outline a theoretical mechanism for fixing the situation and (2) speculating about how said mechanism might actually be put into practice. As you say, perhaps a “whisper network” is a better way to think about the operationalization here.
If parties can implicitly deny candidates funds if they endorse a third-party challenger, what’s to stop No Labels (which is well-funded) from implicitly offering funds for the same? Granted, perhaps the way to do this would be for a group to just start funding reasonable centrists for a few campaign cycles, in order to build the sort of implicit quid pro quo that parties already have with their candidates.
My basic mental model here is that being a politician involves a mix of doing the right thing, and doing the thing that gets you re-elected, and you have to choose which objective to prioritize on a case-by-case basis. A lot of congresspeople saw their lives on the line during January 6, and it seems fairly plausible to me that they will be willing to choose “do the right thing” in this particular circumstance, especially if they’re doing it as part of a large group, a group that’s too large for punishing every ‘defector’ to be practical. And if the scheme works and the alternative candidate gets elected, thereby keeping both Trump and Biden out of office, punishing the people responsible for causing this (presumably fairly desirable) outcome seems a bit incongruous.
Furthermore, the candidates most in need of election funds are vulnerable candidates in swing districts, and those vulnerable candidates in swing districts are exactly those candidates who most need to “move to the center” in the general election in order to capture swing voters. So the benefit of a centrist endorsement might even outweigh the cost of losing some party funds.
Probably a better idea would be to just try and get EITHER democrats OR republicans to pull off a smaller-scale realignment WITHIN their party—ie, getting a cabal of democrats to agree to switch their endorsement (and their electors at the party convention) from Biden to some more-electable figure like Gavin Newsom (or ideally, someone more centrist than Newsom), or getting a cabal of republicans to switch from Trump to Haley (or, again, someone more centrist).
My proposal is compatible with this. The Republican convention is in July, and the Democratic convention is in August. These are natural venues for intra-party coordination. Prior to the late 1960s, I understand that conventions were where the major-party candidates got picked. I see no reason not to aim for three shots on goal, and at least test the waters for a bipartisan ticket before the conventions start a few months from now.
Democrats especially have been discussing the possibility of replacing Biden a lot. A major fear has been that replacing Biden with someone like Kamala Harris might not actually improve their odds of winning the general election. So, I expect Democrats would be especially eager to replace Biden in a way that also pulled in Republican endorsements. On the Republican side, Republicans tried to resist Trump early on, but basically learned that opposing him was electoral suicide. In the context of the GOP electorate, I think that is basically true — see Nikki Haley. In the context of the electorate as a whole, it seems quite possible to me that endorsing a centrist could produce a landslide victory. But perhaps more importantly, the idea of this centrist proposal is that the Republicans wouldn’t be opposing Trump, they’d be opposing Biden. They should work with the grain of negative polarization, not against it.
I think the GOP replacing Trump with an alternative Republican candidate is just a nonstarter given Nikki Haley’s election results.
Thus, even when trying to implement some kind of idealized poli-sci scheme, I think it’s important to pay attention to the detailed politics of the situation and try to craft a hybrid approach, to build something with the best chance of winning.
I think we basically agree here. In my mind, the political equivalent of “if you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” is “if you’re so good at institutions and game theory and policy innovation, why aren’t you able to leverage the existing system as it works here and now?”
Some thoughts:
Promising donations, or even endorsements, to politicians in exchange for their signing up to the dominant-assurance-contract-style scheme, would almost certainly be percieved as sketchy / corruption-adjacent, even if it isn’t a violation of campaign finance law. (I think promising conditional donations, even if not done in writing, would indeed be a violation.) It would be better to just have people signing up because they thought it was a good idea, with no money or other favors changing hands.
I don’t think having people sign a literal dominant assurance contract is the load-bearing part of this proposal; therefore the part where people sign a literal contract should be dropped. First, how will you enforce the contract? Sue them if they aren’t sufficiently enthusiastic supporters of the centrist candidate?? This world of endorsemenets and candidate selection doesn’t run on formal legal rules, it runs on political coalition-building. So instead of having a literal contract at the center of your scheme, you should just have a “whisper-network” style setup, where one central organization (perhaps the No Labels campaign) runs the dominant-assurance-contract logic informally (but still with a high degree of trust and rigor). ie, No Labels would individually talk to different congressmen, explain the scheme, ask if they are interested, etc. If the congressmen like the idea of making a coordinated switch to endorsing a No Labels candidate once enough other congressmen have signed on, then No Labels will keep that in mind, and meanwhile keep their support secret. A problem here is that the organization running this scheme would ideally want to have lots of credibility, authority, etc, which as far as I know, No Labels doesn’t currently have.
(There are other situations, like the national popular vote compact, where a literal legal mechanism is the best way to implement the dominant assurance contract idea. But it’s not right for this situation.)
You and I have been talking about flipping senators and congressmen to support a third-party presidential candidate; but is this really the best plan? Won’t congressmen rationally be extremely hesitant to betray their party like this, even if the scheme succeeds? Imagine that, say, two thirds of the senate and congress and whoever, decide to flip their endorsements to a centrist candidate, and that candidate wins the election. There will still be partisian republican-vs-democrat elections for every other role, including the members’ own reelection campaigns. The party organizations (DNC / RNC) and surrounding infrastructure (think tanks, NGOs, etc), of the democrats and republicans will still exist—these party organizations will want to preserve their own existence (after all, they have to keep fighting for all the downballot races, and they have to be ready to run another more-partisian presidential election in 2028!), so they’ll want to punish these No-Labels-dominant-assurance-scheme defectors by ostracising them, refusing to fund their campaigns, funding primary challengers, etc. So, I think trying to get everyone to flip to a temporary third party just for one presidential election would be a doomed prospect—you’d instead have to go even bigger, and somehow try to get everyone to flip to a permanent third party that would endure as a new, dominant political force in american politics for years to come. This, in turn, seems like way too big of a project and too much of a longshot for anyone to pull off in the next few months.
Probably a better idea would be to just try and get EITHER democrats OR republicans to pull off a smaller-scale realignment WITHIN their party—ie, getting a cabal of democrats to agree to switch their endorsement (and their electors at the party convention) from Biden to some more-electable figure like Gavin Newsom (or ideally, someone more centrist than Newsom), or getting a cabal of republicans to switch from Trump to Haley (or, again, someone more centrist). Instead of trying to transform the entire political landscape and summon an entire third-party winning coalition ex nihilo, for this plan you only need a wee bit of elite coordination, similar to how you describe Biden’s suprise comeback in the 2020 primary election. Plus, now you get two shots-on-goal! Since either the republicans or democrats could use this strategy (personally I’d be more optimistic about the democrats’ ability to pull this off, but if moderate republicans somehow manage an anti-trump coup at their convention, more power to them!).
Finally, you might find this blog post by Matthew Yglesias helpful for understanding some of the political details that have led to this weird situation where both parties seem to be making huge unforced errors by nominating unpopular and weak candidates: https://www.slowboring.com/p/why-the-parties-cant-decide
Yglesias’s writing in general has influenced my comments above, insofar as he emphasizes the importance of internal coalition politics, dives into the nitty-gritty details of the bargaining / politics behind major decisions, and emphasizes “elite persuation” as a good way of trying to achieve change. Personally, I am a huge fan of nerdy poli-sci schemes like approval voting and quadratic voting, dominant assurance contracts, georgist land-value taxes and carbon taxes, charter cities, “base realignment and closure”-inspired ideas for optimal budget reform, and so forth. But reading a bunch of Slow Boring has given me more of an appreciation for the fact that often the most practical way to get things done is indeed to do a bunch of normal grubby politics/negotiation/bargaining/persuasion (and just try to do politics well). Thus, even when trying to implement some kind of idealized poli-sci scheme, I think it’s important to pay attention to the detailed politics of the situation and try to craft a hybrid approach, to build something with the best chance of winning.
Thanks for the comment!
One of the points I was thinking about making in the post, but ended up cutting, is that enforcement mechanisms like the ones I propose for a “contract” already seem to exist in practice. That’s essentially the point you’re making in this paragraph — political parties have informal endorsement mechanisms to keep their candidates in line, even if those enforcement mechanisms aren’t specified in writing. Hence this section from my post:
Basically you can think of my post as making a 2-step argument: (1) outline a theoretical mechanism for fixing the situation and (2) speculating about how said mechanism might actually be put into practice. As you say, perhaps a “whisper network” is a better way to think about the operationalization here.
If parties can implicitly deny candidates funds if they endorse a third-party challenger, what’s to stop No Labels (which is well-funded) from implicitly offering funds for the same? Granted, perhaps the way to do this would be for a group to just start funding reasonable centrists for a few campaign cycles, in order to build the sort of implicit quid pro quo that parties already have with their candidates.
My basic mental model here is that being a politician involves a mix of doing the right thing, and doing the thing that gets you re-elected, and you have to choose which objective to prioritize on a case-by-case basis. A lot of congresspeople saw their lives on the line during January 6, and it seems fairly plausible to me that they will be willing to choose “do the right thing” in this particular circumstance, especially if they’re doing it as part of a large group, a group that’s too large for punishing every ‘defector’ to be practical. And if the scheme works and the alternative candidate gets elected, thereby keeping both Trump and Biden out of office, punishing the people responsible for causing this (presumably fairly desirable) outcome seems a bit incongruous.
Furthermore, the candidates most in need of election funds are vulnerable candidates in swing districts, and those vulnerable candidates in swing districts are exactly those candidates who most need to “move to the center” in the general election in order to capture swing voters. So the benefit of a centrist endorsement might even outweigh the cost of losing some party funds.
My proposal is compatible with this. The Republican convention is in July, and the Democratic convention is in August. These are natural venues for intra-party coordination. Prior to the late 1960s, I understand that conventions were where the major-party candidates got picked. I see no reason not to aim for three shots on goal, and at least test the waters for a bipartisan ticket before the conventions start a few months from now.
Democrats especially have been discussing the possibility of replacing Biden a lot. A major fear has been that replacing Biden with someone like Kamala Harris might not actually improve their odds of winning the general election. So, I expect Democrats would be especially eager to replace Biden in a way that also pulled in Republican endorsements. On the Republican side, Republicans tried to resist Trump early on, but basically learned that opposing him was electoral suicide. In the context of the GOP electorate, I think that is basically true — see Nikki Haley. In the context of the electorate as a whole, it seems quite possible to me that endorsing a centrist could produce a landslide victory. But perhaps more importantly, the idea of this centrist proposal is that the Republicans wouldn’t be opposing Trump, they’d be opposing Biden. They should work with the grain of negative polarization, not against it.
I think the GOP replacing Trump with an alternative Republican candidate is just a nonstarter given Nikki Haley’s election results.
I think we basically agree here. In my mind, the political equivalent of “if you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” is “if you’re so good at institutions and game theory and policy innovation, why aren’t you able to leverage the existing system as it works here and now?”