Until recently I’ve always understood voting to be very simple for the citizens; you pick a candidate whose views best represent your own, maybe you try and talk some of your friends and family into agreeing with you, then you head out to the polls on election day and put in your vote. Apparently it’s not so straight-forward. Consider a simplified example: Say there are 3 candidates: A, B, and C, such that A and B agree on a good deal of the issues, but do have significant differences, and C is completely different from both. Maybe recent polls predict that C will get 40% of the vote, and A and B will each get about 30%. If everyone goes to the polls and picks their favorite, C will win, and 60% of the population will be extremely unhappy. But if the voters who support A and B can play some sort of game, they could both do better. A’s supporters can do better by collaborating and voting for B, they’d be much happier with B in office and they can make it happen. The same goes for B’s supporters. A and B are pretty much playing a battle of the sexes, where they would absolutely hate having C win, which is what will happen if they dont collaborate, but neither will be too happy if they have to give up their candidate. I really know nothing about US History, but maybe this concept is what started the 2-party system…both parties realized that they could gain an upper hand with fewer candidates.

It can also get much more complicated. This article talks about possible strategies in the upcoming election, as well as in past elections. http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/industries/government/article/games-played-vote_482985_18.html

It’s interesting to see how much strategy matters behind the scenes in a campaign, and it’s strategies like these that manage to put people in office with less of the popular vote. What makes this related to what we study in class is that these campaign decisions dont just depend on statistics alone, they depend mostly on what the other campaigns decide to do. For instance, it’s not just because big states like California have a high population, or that they’re more likely to vote one way or the other that makes everyone focus their efforts there. It’s because every other player is already focusing so hard there that each player needs to in order to stay alive. If no one else was putting much effort into California and you could take it without too much funding, putting all your effort there is just wasting resources. And if the republicans decide to try this thing in Wisconsin and all vote for Hillary, maybe Obama supporters will see this as an opportunity to do the same thing and vote for Huckabee, since it’s unlikely that Obama will be able to beat Hillary supporters AND McCain supporters. If this happens then all the campaign’s will have to think and decide if they can make a better play. What this article doesnt mention about Lincoln’s campaign either is what Buchanan, Fillmore and Fremont did in response. I think it’s unlikely that Lincoln just got unlucky and his idea didnt work, but rather Buchanan played his best response to Lincoln’s strategy and it worked out in the end.

What makes this interesting is that campaigns clearly aren’t just about getting the majority to vote for you, it’s about using the votes you have effectively and getting the votes that count most. What makes this more interesting is that these strategies depend mostly on how the other campaigns play their cards. Maybe this is why incidents like watergate happen. In a way I guess it sucks that the best strategist wins over the candidate with the most votes, but it’s not horrible that our politicians are forced to understand strategic decision making.