By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Note to subscribers: This is an updated version of this column that had been released earlier today.

The race between Sen. Mark Pryor and Rep. Tom Cotton is one of the two or three most important in the country because both political parties believe it will help determine control of the Senate. But another race could be even more important – the one in Kansas, where businessman Greg Orman, a member of no party, has a real chance to win.

Orman, an independent, had polled third in a four-man race in a recent Public Policy Polling survey, but with 23 percent support, he was not far behind Sen. Pat Roberts, the unpopular incumbent Republican. Roberts was leading with only 32 percent and had an approval rating lower than President Obama’s. That same poll revealed that, were this only a two-man race between Orman and Sen. Roberts, Orman would be leading, 43-33.

The four-man race is now a three-man race. The Democrat, Chad Taylor, who was second with 25 percent, dropped out Wednesday. The other candidate is Libertarian Randy Batson.

Taylor had little chance of winning in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since the Great Depression. In fact, the best he could have done was split the anti-incumbent vote and elect the Republican, which would have been a huge irony. Typically the argument against voting for independents is that it’s a “wasted vote” – you know, you must vote for the major party candidate you dislike the least, or you’ll otherwise help the other major party’s candidate win. In this case, the Democrat would have been the spoiler. His party’s leadership obviously encouraged him to drop out.

Orman says he simply does not fit into either party. He was a College Republican in 1988, became a fan of independent Ross Perot in 1992, leaned Republican for a while, and then flirted with running against Roberts as a Democrat in the 2008 race. He says he voted for President Obama in 2008 and then Mitt Romney in 2012. In 2010, he founded the Common Sense Coalition, whose purpose has been to elect centrist candidates. “Historically, I’ve tried the Republican Party, I’ve tried the Democratic Party, and I’ve just finally decided that if we’re going to change things in Washington, we’ve got to attack the two-party system and stop supporting it,” he told MSNBC.

He describes himself as “fiscally conservative and socially tolerant,” which might not play well in Arkansas right now but apparently has some appeal in Kansas. The nationwide tension between the GOP’s various factions is boiling over in that state. On Wednesday, more than 70 moderate former Republican legislators announced they were supporting Orman, not their own party’s candidate.

Why am I writing about a Kansas race? Because of what might happen if Orman wins. There are already two independents in the Senate who align themselves with the Democrats. Orman says he will caucus with whichever party will adopt more of a solutions-oriented approach. If control of the Senate in this close election comes down to which party he chooses to align with, he then becomes a powerful swing vote. He could make demands. And that could get interesting.

Then what? There would be three independents out of 100 in the Senate. Maybe Orman’s model could create a template that other independent candidates could follow. Maybe a rich businessman in a state like Arkansas might decide to run as an independent, too. Maybe if there were six or seven independents in the Senate, they could form a “coalition of the uncorrupted” who side with either party or neither depending on the issue, forcing both to behave.

Of course I’m heading toward wishful thinking territory here. Eventually, that coalition would be corrupted, too. Also, two-party domination is almost inevitable the way our system is designed. The most likely good scenario is a shakeup that makes the system work a little better for a while. That’s what happened after 1992, when Perot won 19 percent of the vote basing his campaign on balancing the budget, and then congressional Republicans and President Clinton sort of balanced the budget.

Maybe it starts this time in Kansas.

Here is one of Orman’s ads.

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Let’s start with an apology: I’m sorry for using the word “poll” in this first paragraph. There have been many polls in this year’s U.S. Senate race, and there will be many more. In one poll released this week, however, two numbers stood out.

It’s not the 44 percent of likely voters picking Tom Cotton or the 42 percent supporting Mark Pryor in the latest Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College poll. Those two candidates consistently poll at about those levels. Their focus henceforth will be on ensuring those base levels show up on Election Day – mostly by scaring them – and on fighting over the other 14 percent.

The question is, how much of that 14 percent is available, and to whom? And that’s why the other poll numbers might matter: 4 and 3.

Unlike many polls, this one also included the minor party candidates. Mark Swaney of the Green Party polled at 4 percent, while Libertarian Nathan LaFrance attracted 3 percent.

I’m a word guy, not a math whiz, but 4+3=7, and in an election this close, that’s a factor.

Granted, many of those respondents are just sick of all the negative ads and picked one of the other two names, despite there also being an “undecided” option. But let’s spend a few paragraphs focusing on those respondents who purposely chose Swaney and LaFrance. They might have an effect on the election, maybe an important one, because they are probably taking a bigger bite out of Pryor’s support than Cotton’s.

The Green Party’s main issues are climate change and nationalized health care. They are unapologetically liberal. It’s safe to assume that most of the informed respondents who said they were voting for Swaney would be Pryor voters if there were only two choices. Few are playing “eenie meenie miney moe” between the Green Party and Cotton.

Libertarians, on the other hand, are for smaller government in every way. They would cut taxes and government spending significantly, so on economic issues, they are to the right of Republicans. However, on social issues, they generally support gay marriage, legalizing marijuana, and keeping abortion legal. They’d slash defense spending, too. In many ways, they’re to the left of Democrats.

So the 4 percent (the informed ones, anyway) who said they would vote for Swaney would have picked Pryor if there were only two choices. But the informed portion of LaFrance’s 3 percent would have gone either way – probably more for Cotton, but not exclusively.

I’m not saying this necessarily will change the outcome, but Pryor is being hurt more than Cotton.

The numbers won’t stay this way. Swaney and LaFrance are poorly funded candidates who don’t have money to advertise and probably have reached their ceilings of support. A percentage of those who do vote will gravitate toward Pryor or Cotton because of the so-called “spoiler effect.” In our winner-take-all system, voters have an incentive to choose the least objectionable of only two parties, lest the more objectionable candidate win.

Here’s where you might say this is why we need just two parties, and that people shouldn’t “waste their votes” on candidates who can’t win. You might say those liberal Green Party supporters should just choose Pryor, the less conservative of the two major party candidates.

Green Party voters don’t see it that way. They would say both Pryor and Cotton are the conservative candidates, and that Swaney is the only one who represents their values. If you really believe both Republicans and Democrats are ruining the planet, must you vote for the one you think is less ruinous? Libertarians say Democrats and Republicans both are the parties of big government – the same party, in fact, just two sides of the same coin.

This is the land of many choices, except in elections. But there are ways our democracy could be more open but still efficient. One is instant runoff voting, where voters rank their candidates top to bottom, and a numerical process determines the winner. Green Party voters could make their statement by picking Swaney first and then Pryor (or LaFrance) as their number two.

But we don’t have instant runoff voting. We have winner-take-all voting, in a very close race, where a few percentage points matter.

Note: Here’s a link to the Talk Business & Politics-Henderix College poll.

Above is an excellent video by C.G.P. Grey explaining why the spoiler effect makes it so hard for third parties and independents to break through. Below, C.G.P. Grey explains instant runoff voting, or what he calls the alternative vote.

By Steve Brawner

Should immigration be more of a state issue than it is now? Ken Hamilton, Libertarian candidate for Congress in the 4th District, says it should be. The federal government sure can’t seem to solve it on its own.

Here’s how immigration would work if Hamilton, 58, an El Dorado accountant with Murphy USA, got his way. The federal government would continue to enforce border security and decide who gets to come into the country, but it would do so based on requests from the states. Some states would want a lot of immigrants, others not so many.

So say California decides it needs 10,000 farm workers. The federal government would grant that many visas to work in California only.

Then California would take it from there. Immigrants could work wherever they want within that state’s borders – unlike today’s employer-based visas, which force them to serve a particular boss who is regulated by the federal government. Immigrants could travel to other states, but they couldn’t work in them legally. However, certain immigrants such as migrant farm workers could receive visas allowing them to travel between states based on growing seasons. California could offer permanent state residency to those immigrant workers who follow the rules. It also could allot visas to members of its current illegal immigrant population. Eventually, immigrants could earn U.S. citizenship. In the meantime, states could determine what benefits they receive.

“The states can tailor the program to what they need,” he said. “If they need high-tech, they can do it. If they need farm workers, they can do it. I think that’s the best way to do it rather than a top-down, one-size-fits-all program out of the federal government.”

Hamilton says a state-based approach would break the logjam in Congress. Democrats typically favor a path to citizenship. Republicans, meanwhile, are split between two factions. Establishment Republicans want a more open policy because employers need the workers and because the party needs to better appeal to Hispanics, a fast-growing minority that is siding with Democrats in elections. On the other side, a large faction of Republicans say a path to citizenship amounts to awarding amnesty to lawbreakers. Secure the border, they say.

The result has been a sometimes ugly debate that hasn’t solved anything. We all know the current system inadequately controls the border. We all know it’s resulted in millions of illegal immigrants living here as part of a shadowy underclass without a real stake in society or an opportunity to achieve the American dream. We all know this situation provides a lot of cheap labor but also hurts certain American workers. But, election to election, little changes.

Hamilton, of course, almost certainly won’t be elected. The United States remains staunchly a two-party system despite voters’ unhappiness with what’s happening in Washington.

But picking winners and losers is not the only reason we have elections. It’s also a chance to have a national debate about the issues. The two major parties, whether they are promoting a path to citizenship or favor just closing the border, haven’t gotten us anywhere.

They can’t even figure out what to do with illegal immigrants who were brought here as children by their parents and have much-needed technical skills. American taxpayers pay for an undocumented child immigrant to go to public school, sometimes from kindergarten through the 12th grade, but then it’s difficult for them to go to college and nearly impossible for them to fulfill their potential in the workforce. We won’t even give them a chance to earn their citizenship by serving in the military.

So now someone else is offering another option: If Washington can’t solve the problem, let the states take charge.

Got a better idea?