Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Lieberman/Tancredo cntd.

Per Adam's post below- anybody who wants a little background on Avigdor Lieberman and the Israeli election should take a look here.

I think the Tom Tancredo comparison is very appropos. Some might argue that Tancredo has never come close to the level of national prominence and electoral success that's predicted for Lieberman's party, but I think that's a function of the difference between the American and Israeli systems of government. If the US had a multi-party, coalition based parliament, it's quite reasonable to assume that some kind of isolationist, hyper-national, anti-immigrant party (whether headed by Tancredo or not) would garner 10-15% of the vote. Part of the reason Tancredo didn't get that kind of traction in the 2008 GOP primary was that nobody thought he could win, and in a first-past-the-post system like we have, winning means everything.

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