We spend a lot of energy here on Daily Kos — and in a lot of other places — fighting about whether Obama deserves support or opposition. The problem is, both sides have valid points. Without the support of his base, Obama really could lose, and whoever beat him really could be a whole lot worse. But without real pressure from the left, he will continue to get pushed to the right. Whether you like it or hate it, he's a pragmatist, not prone to drawing any ostentatious lines in the sand, so if the effective pressure is all from one side, that will move him.
What do you do when you're faced with two horrible options? Look for a third option. This diary is to tell you about a way we could increase our options. The reform I'll suggest would empower the grass roots to put effective pressure on party higher-ups, without reducing the effectiveness of their opposition to the other party. It's a non-partisan, democratic reform - one that should justly get support not just from "firebaggers" and "Obamabots" but even from the original "teabaggers" on the right. And it's one that you may have heard of and vaguely support, but you probably don't see how it relates to supporting versus pressure from the base.
Of course, there's no miracle cure. The downside is that the reform I'll suggest will take years of painstaking activism before it will be a factor on a national scale. And so I also want this diary's discussion to be a place to suggest other ways to dissolve the dilemma. We need more, better tactics, both short-term and long-term, because no matter how you feel about Obama, I don't think anyone here could be complacent about the direction of the country.
So, what's my magic suggestion, that will let people who oppose Obama from the left, and those who see opposing the Republicans as the overwhelming priority, work together without needing to fight? Effective voting reform. Elections are the fundamental characteristic of democracy, and as long as we have an election system that could almost have been designed to create dilemmas and strife between allies, we'll have the same kinds of problems. But just as our sick election system leads to a sick democracy, a healthier system would help to heal us, including the factional battles on DKos.
To make my point, I'm going to have to talk about the concept of "spoilers". Of course, you know what a spoiler is: an extra candidate from one ideological side whose presence in the race pulls enough votes from an ideologically-similar candidate so that the ideologically-opposed candidate wins.
The plurality system — the most-common voting system in the US — is almost perfectly designed to cause spoilers. Since you can only vote for one candidate, the vote between two similar candidates is inevitably split, which can only help their opposition. Sociologist Maurice Duverger saw that the inevitable result was that two parties would come to dominate politically, because voters would know that a vote for a "third" party would be wasted or worse; this result is called "Duverger's law", and the US is exhibit A.
All that is familiar. But it takes a little bit more imagination to envision what the world would be like without spoilers. Fighting against the spoiler system is not just a matter of wishing that Gore or Nader had won in 2000. Nader winning, whatever you think of the man, would have been a seriously undemocratic result; a clear majority of voters would have opposed him. And Gore winning would certainly have been an improvement, but if that means silencing the concerns that led to Nader's rise (again, I don't want to have this be about Nader personally), it would not really resolve the issue.
So it's important to see that the opposite of "spoiler" is neither "winner" nor just "loser", but "effective minority faction leader". Don't think Nader; think Wellstone, or Grayson, somebody who gives effective voice to the concerns of some constituency. A real non-spoiler would not be forced, as Nader was, to choose between voicing a criticism and preventing a horrible result. With the spoiler system, it's as if every potential Rosa Parks is taking her daughter to the emergency room; she loses either way, whether she meekly goes to the back of the bus or whether she lets the child bleed to death. OK, that metaphor may be too melodramatic, but as a voter I know that I lose whether Bush wins or whether Obama is safe to ignore the left. And I will keep losing until the rules are changed.
So, how could an electoral system give a fair voice to factions? Well, start out by not forcing people to choose between voting their hopes and their fears. You may have heard of Instant Runoff Voting (also sometimes called Ranked Choice Voting), which is one option for a system which allows you to provide second- and lower-choice "backup votes" in case your preferred candidate can not win. Even simpler is Approval Voting, where you simply vote yes or no for each candidate separately, and the one with the most yes votes wins. And I'll talk about some other options later. Under any of these systems, you can vote both your hopes and your fears. That is to say, under any of these systems, no one would have to choose between supporting Obama against the republicans, and also supporting a more-progressive alternative to Obama. And so Obama suppporters could see those pressuring Obama as what they are — allies — and not as enemies. Poof: one side of the pie fight, resolved.
But that's not the whole solution. These systems would help to keep third-party runs from spoiling the result, but they still leave main candidates with the wrong incentives. If one side goes batshit insane, the best strategy for the "other" side is still to triangulate to the center of the Overton window. In other words, the pressure moving Obama to the right would still have far more teeth than the pressure pushing him to the left.
To resolve that, it's important to realize what voting is. It's not just a way to pick a winner. If it were only that, it would be a waste of time for most people to vote, because the chances that your one ballot is going to sway the result are miniscule. No, voting is also one way to use your voice. It should never be the only way, but it is an important one. So I, as a voter, would in many cases be happy to give my voice to my favorite candidate. I want my voice speaking out for an uncompromised solution to be heard, even as I also support that compromise over a total loss.
There is a voting system which accomplishes this. It's called Simple Optionally-Delegated Approval (SODA). As in approval voting, voters get a ballot which lets them vote for as many or as few candidates as they like. Unlike in approval, voters who don't want to decide "yes" or "no" for every candidate can choose to delegate their ballot, trusting their favorite candidate to "complete the ballot" by deciding which others to approve. Candidates must complete ballots in accord with their preannounced preference order; this gives voters a guarantee that their vote will not be used for candidates they despise, and prevents vote-selling by candidates. After voters' ballots are counted and the totals are announced, candidates can choose to exercise the ballots delegated to them. At that point, candidates who do not expect to win can use the delegated ballots they hold to approve others whom they think would be good compromise options.
This system would give winners that are significantly better - more true support, with less chance for sneaky strategy by voters - than either of the other systems I've mentioned (approval or IRV). But more importantly, it gives a fair voice to the non-winning candidates. By delegating my vote to a candidate, I would be allowing that candidate to speak and to negotiate for me. Elections, instead of being a relentless force pushing major candidates to triangulate towards (or beyond) the center, would be a check on that force.