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khafra comments on Voting is like donating thousands of dollars to charity - Less Wrong
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I recently heard an argument to the contrary: Viewing voter preferences along one dimension for simplicity, if a small percentage on the left breaks away and votes for an extreme-left candidate, the mainstream left candidate may actually move further to the right--since the majority of undecided voters are in the middle, not along the boundary between left and extreme-left.
This may not generalize to a hyperplane separating a particular non-mainstream candidate from other candidates in n-dimensional policy-space, but I don't know if presidential campaigns are set up to do that level of analysis.
You were right when you described "along one dimension" as being simplistic. There are other options than extreme-left, left, centrist, right, and extreme-right (for instance). Engaging in false dilemma reasoning as an excuse to vote for a mainstream candidate with no interest in sending political messages encouraging reform is not particularly rational.