Wampum

Wouldn't it be neat if every candidate, Nader included, got the same amount of paid radio and television media? Wouldn't it be cool if we had run-off voting, so that one could vote "Green" or "Socialist" or "Anarchist" or ... and still vote for the better of the two major parties? Wouldn't it be wicked if the media had to STFU before calling Florida for Bush or Ohio for Bush or where ever the next SCOTUS-promoted fraud steals the election?

That's how it works in France, and the media in France (but not Belgium or Switzerland) is now in the black-out period until 20h, heure de Paris, Sunday the 22nd, when the results of the first round will be announced.

I've no idea at all how its going to turn out. The standard script is the left and right parties take 30% plus each, and proceed to the second round. Only in this cycle, there is a third choice that is neither somewhat left nor right, and the rules are still the two top vote getters advance to the second tour. So it could be the right vs the somewhat left, or it could be the right vs ... the somewhat right. For that matter, it could be the somewhat right vs the somewhat left.

No one knows how the extreme right will really play. Will they play it straight and go for their historic high of 15% or so, and become a party somewhere between the noise of the under 5% parties (Greens, Other Greens, Communists, Other Communists, Royalists, etc.) and the 30% of the major parties, a "fourth force", and toss their lot in with the right in the second round? Or will they make sure the right dominates the first round, and play early, or will they decide to historically knock out the right, play early and hard, and offer the somewhat right two awkward choices -- win with them or lose without them?

The minor parties on the left have the same choices, but with a quarter of the polling data strength of the single major party of the extreme right.

If everyone plays according to the rules, the polling data has the right beating the somewhat left in the 2nd round by 2xMOE.