novalis comments on A Voting Puzzle, Some Political Science, and a Nerd Failure Mode - Less Wrong

88 Post author: ChrisHallquist 10 October 2013 02:10AM

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Comment author: brainoil 11 October 2013 07:43:10AM 1 point [-]

I'm not American, so I could be wrong about this. But at first glance it seems to me that Republicans have to run two vastly different campaigns, one in the primaries and the other in the general election, while Democrats could run pretty much the same campaign in the primaries as well as the general election. It seems to me that people like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz would have to get called flip-flops if they were to run for presidency in 2016 while Hillary Clinton would be able to run just one campaign.

Am I wrong, or is the Democratic party just larger than the Republican party and therefore more mainstream?

Comment author: novalis 11 October 2013 11:45:26PM 0 points [-]

while Democrats could run pretty much the same campaign in the primaries as well as the general election.

Democrats in fact differ between the primary and the general election. Off the top of my head, consider Obama's shift on FISA from 2007 (voted against) to post-primary 2008 (voted for telecom immunity).