Not sure I follow. What prevents republicans from joining democrats?
I think the point is that you get peoples opt into the party and then show during elections that this party can indeed swing votes. That’s the proof of work.
Sorry, let me try again, and be a little more direct. If the New Center starts to actually swing votes, Republicans will join and pretend to be centrists, while trying to co-opt the group into supporting Republicans.
Meanwhile, Democrats will join and try to co-opt the group into supporting Democrats.
Unless you have a way to ensure that only actual centrists have any influence, you’ll end up with a group that’s mostly made up of extreme partisans from both sides. And that will make it impossible for the group to function as intended.
Here is another possible solution (which might be bad in other respects):
Maybe a formal declaration of membership only serves to increase the visibility of the group (by boosting numbers on their website). The actual position on issues cannot be “influenced”. Instead, the New Center platform preforms imperial surveys of the general population to find issues on which there is broad agreement.
Or: official bloc membership might get you a voice in determining which issues get put on the surveys. But ultimately the surveys determine the New Center position.
This would make it difficult to take over the New Center and make it a mouthpiece for non-moderates (albeit not impossible).
The short answer is the same thing that prevents the target audience from joining the reds or the blues and influencing them in the direction they would prefer: too much work.
But based on the idea so far, I claim this is a requirement for effectiveness. In order to get either party to change their behavior, they need to have a good understanding of what this group of swing voters want, and that requires getting an inside view.
It is much, much harder to persuade a group of people than it is to simply tell them what they want to hear. You will be encouraged to know that this is the formal position of virtually all political operatives, because their unit of planning is an election campaign and research shows that is too short a time to effectively persuade a population of voters.
It would also be super weird if when targeting disaffected voters in the middle there were no converts from the disaffected margins of either major party (who presumably will still naturally advocate for the things that drew them to the party in the first place, which is almost the same as a true believer in the party advocating). This too is a desirable outcome.
Not sure I follow. What prevents republicans from joining democrats?
I think the point is that you get peoples opt into the party and then show during elections that this party can indeed swing votes. That’s the proof of work.
Sorry, let me try again, and be a little more direct. If the New Center starts to actually swing votes, Republicans will join and pretend to be centrists, while trying to co-opt the group into supporting Republicans.
Meanwhile, Democrats will join and try to co-opt the group into supporting Democrats.
Unless you have a way to ensure that only actual centrists have any influence, you’ll end up with a group that’s mostly made up of extreme partisans from both sides. And that will make it impossible for the group to function as intended.
Here is another possible solution (which might be bad in other respects):
Maybe a formal declaration of membership only serves to increase the visibility of the group (by boosting numbers on their website). The actual position on issues cannot be “influenced”. Instead, the New Center platform preforms imperial surveys of the general population to find issues on which there is broad agreement.
Or: official bloc membership might get you a voice in determining which issues get put on the surveys. But ultimately the surveys determine the New Center position.
This would make it difficult to take over the New Center and make it a mouthpiece for non-moderates (albeit not impossible).
The short answer is the same thing that prevents the target audience from joining the reds or the blues and influencing them in the direction they would prefer: too much work.
But based on the idea so far, I claim this is a requirement for effectiveness. In order to get either party to change their behavior, they need to have a good understanding of what this group of swing voters want, and that requires getting an inside view.
It is much, much harder to persuade a group of people than it is to simply tell them what they want to hear. You will be encouraged to know that this is the formal position of virtually all political operatives, because their unit of planning is an election campaign and research shows that is too short a time to effectively persuade a population of voters.
It would also be super weird if when targeting disaffected voters in the middle there were no converts from the disaffected margins of either major party (who presumably will still naturally advocate for the things that drew them to the party in the first place, which is almost the same as a true believer in the party advocating). This too is a desirable outcome.