Slashdot Mirror
Rubio and Kasich Are Living Out a Classic Game Theory Dilemma
HughPickens.com writes: Kevin Quealy writes in the NYT that the two remaining mainstream candidates for the GOP Presidential nomination — Marco Rubio and John Kasich — are living out an issue studied for decades in game theory. Game theorists might call the GOP predicament an anti-coordination game or a volunteer's dilemma but most of us might call it by a more familiar name: chicken. Although Rubio is the obvious establishment favorite, the two are splitting some votes. so to have his best chance against Trump and Cruz, Rubio needs Kasich to drop out. The longer both candidates remain in the race, the worse it is for both of them.
Kasich's first option is to stay in the race but he could go further, by committing to stay in no matter what. In a classic game of chicken between two drivers rushing headlong toward each other, this strategy is like removing your steering wheel, leaving you no choice but to drive straight toward your opponent. Kasich could hope for another robotic debate performance from Rubio or even an implosion from the Trump or Cruz campaigns. Kasich 's second strategy would be to cut a deal with Rubio — offer to drop out, for example, in exchange, for the second spot on a Rubio ticket or a cabinet post. Kasich's third strategy would be to threaten to support a different candidate, like Trump or Cruz. If the threat had the potential to damage Rubio enough, it could be a useful bargaining chip. "Being crazy is a strategy, but only if your opponent actually believes it," says Richard Thaler. Part of the problem is that this is a game that's played just once. "The chance to be your party's nominee for president comes along only every four or eight years, even for the very luckiest candidates," says Quealy. "If the candidates lived in a universe in which they could run for president hundreds of times, they might agree that, on average, their shared interests were better served by cooperating." But this is not an iterated dilemma. It's a one-time-only dilemma with a tremendous payoff for the winner. Ultimately, both Kasich and Rubio risk an outcome neither wants. But as Daniel Diermeier, the dean of the public policy school at the University of Chicago, notes, "A very important lesson of game theory is that sometimes the world is a grim place."
Kasich's first option is to stay in the race but he could go further, by committing to stay in no matter what. In a classic game of chicken between two drivers rushing headlong toward each other, this strategy is like removing your steering wheel, leaving you no choice but to drive straight toward your opponent. Kasich could hope for another robotic debate performance from Rubio or even an implosion from the Trump or Cruz campaigns. Kasich 's second strategy would be to cut a deal with Rubio — offer to drop out, for example, in exchange, for the second spot on a Rubio ticket or a cabinet post. Kasich's third strategy would be to threaten to support a different candidate, like Trump or Cruz. If the threat had the potential to damage Rubio enough, it could be a useful bargaining chip. "Being crazy is a strategy, but only if your opponent actually believes it," says Richard Thaler. Part of the problem is that this is a game that's played just once. "The chance to be your party's nominee for president comes along only every four or eight years, even for the very luckiest candidates," says Quealy. "If the candidates lived in a universe in which they could run for president hundreds of times, they might agree that, on average, their shared interests were better served by cooperating." But this is not an iterated dilemma. It's a one-time-only dilemma with a tremendous payoff for the winner. Ultimately, both Kasich and Rubio risk an outcome neither wants. But as Daniel Diermeier, the dean of the public policy school at the University of Chicago, notes, "A very important lesson of game theory is that sometimes the world is a grim place."
Kasich is smart enough to realize that he isn't going to win the general election in 2016. He also may be the only person on stage smart enough to realize that none of the GOP hopefuls will, either - hence there is no reason for him to negotiate with Rubio for a cabinet position that will never materialize. There has only been one national poll so far that has shown a GOP candidate beating Hillary, but it was within the margin of error. If the democrats nominate Sanders, however, it will be a GOP bloodbath as he beats the GOP candidates by much more than the margin of error.
Kasich is more likely staying in the game for the same reason that Trump entered it - fame and recognition. Obviously Trump was already famous before announcing but now he is even more so; though very few people outside of Ohio knew of Kasich before he got in the ring. Much like several other past GOP hopefuls, Kasich has opened up great new opportunities for himself as a Fox News commentator, a Washington lobbyist, a think tank leader, or various other jobs of that sort which were previously beyond his grasp. The longer he stays in, the more his brand grows.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
..because it assumes only rational agents.
I still wonder how it is possible that the republicans can't come up with a single decent candidate. And this is not the first time that happened.
He has only been a senator for 3 years, and is associated with the radical second-wave/post hijack/radical conservative Tea Party movement (not the libertarian movement).
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Whoever wins the republican nomination could still win. Political races are funny things and swing voters are fickle and emotional. Let me give an extreme example. Kasich is almost the nominee and a fire breaks out in his hotel. He starts pulling people from the fire and saves some children and it's caught on camera. Suddenly he takes the nomination and the presidency. Yes, it's stupid but people have lost over less... see Howard Dean's scream.
The thing that is scary about Kasich is how he has fooled the press into thinking he's a moderate. He's no moderate. He's one of the stealth anti abortion candidates of the 90's. He sounds moderate but his actions are pretty radical(anti abortion bills with no abortion exception even to save the life of the mother). I fear Kasich far more than Cruz. Cruz can't hide his instanity. Kasich does it quite nicely.
The press has failed us. They tell us all about the horse race, but tell us little to nothing about policy differences.
No candidate can win the convention on the first ballot unless they have a majority in 8 states.
None of the candidates are currently poised to do this. None have won a majority in any state yet. The implication is that this game is considerably more complex than chicken. It's very possible for any candidate to lose a plurality but win the nomination.
If Cruz or Trump wins and Hillary is the nominee. You will see Republican-leaning voters and blue dog democrats coming out of the wood work to support the Republican over Hillary. Cruz is not controlled by Wall Street and Trump is openly running a pro-common man, fuck the special interests campaign and he can pull it off because he's so rich he could moon Wall Street in public and not miss a single dollar from them.
Clinton, on the other hand, is married into Wall Street. She's pro-amnesty, pro-every Chamber of Commerce fuck the little guy interest out there.
And to add to the problem for Clinton, she consistently loses millennial female support every time the issue of her and Bill's behavior toward women comes up. Bill makes Trump look like Billy Graham in his treatment of women. Hillary has a proven legacy of keeping women from getting their due in court, including laughing at a 12 year old rape victim.
Sanders is the only electable candidate they have unless it's a Kasich-Bush ticket.
I still wonder how it is possible that the republicans can't come up with a single decent candidate. And this is not the first time that happened.
Why would you need a decent candidate ? Primaries on the Republican side are governed by the most right wingers, racists, bible thumpers extremists. You cannot win the primary be being a good/moderate/compromising Republican. Hence the host of batshit crazies that sprout up. Trump is an anomaly because he's his own man. You can bet whatever you want he doesn't give a shit about the Republican constituency. He just wants the presidency, and can shout louder than anybody else. After all, he's being more Republican than all the other Republican candidates put together.. The Republican leadership has a lot of soul searching to do. You cannot cater only to extremists for more than a generation and think it won't fuck up the political process. We have already seen what the current bunch of uncompromising Republitards had done in Congress. This is simply more of the same.
When I studied Game Theory and couldn't work out an answer I would simple posit "What would the biggest d-bag in the entire world do?" Not just some asshole, but the biggest dbag on the entire planet. This served me very well.
Often in GT there are questions where you will have something where the end question would be "How would the captain share the 100 gold pieces among his 5 sailors?" Obviously the biggest d-bag in the entire world would keep 95 and share only 5. This or something very close to it would be the answer most of the time.
Where Game Theory often gets it wrong is that there is a second tier of math that people will impose on a GT scenario. So in the classic prisoner's dilemma the whole snitching as a default strategy is rebalanced by Mario cutting your face off if you snitch.
Also Game Theory is balanced culturally. For instance in most parts of Canada a four way stop sign will work very well with everyone taking their turn 99% of the time. A cultural sense of fair play keeps it functioning even though game theory says to never take your turn. I have been in some third world cut-throat countries where a four way stop would just end up with a bunch of cars all jammed in place nose to nose with scooters weaving in and around the mess. In these countries everyone is a snitch in the prisoner's dilemma.
Uh, last time I've checked, Rubio vs Clinton was rather very GOP (+5% to Rubio):
http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
Rubio to Clinton is roughly what Clinton is to Trump:
http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
Cruz vs Clinton also doesn't look bad for GOP at all:
http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
Cruz + Rubio have more votes, than Trump, had one of the two dropped out in favor of the other... Nobody would care about what Kasich does.
(I don't see how him supporting Rubio allows Rubio to beat Trump, if Cruz is still there with 20% of the votes)
What the article doesn't get is the following in terms of voters.
Rubio + Kasich is less than Trump
It's going to be a lot less than Trump. Not a little but a lot. As the campaign goes on, Trump will pick up momentum and he will easily begin to get over 50% of the vote in states with the rest of the candidates fighting over the scraps. I'm not his biggest fan, but to me there are certainly worse alternatives in the Republican primary and his ability to win a national election is vary badly underestimated by many on the left, just as they are very likely grossly overestimating Bernie Sanders ability to win a national election.
I still wonder how it is possible that the republicans can't come up with a single decent candidate. And this is not the first time that happened.
Arguably neither party has a decent candidate this go around but I agree. The GOP candidates in particular all have wigs, red noses and large shoes. That party has kind of painted themselves into this ridiculous ideological corner and they get weird candidates that try to fit that impossible puzzle. They claim to want government out of people's business but then ignore that when it comes to "values" thanks to the religious wing of the party. They also claim to be about fiscal responsibility but they can't ever vote for raising taxes if they want to stay in office even when it is absurd not to. And despite their claims they wan to cut spending their actions show exactly the opposite - they just want to spend money on THEIR causes. So they have to argue the ridiculous idea that somehow we can achieve prosperity by continually cutting taxes, mostly for wealthy people, while not reducing spending (especially on the military) and staying out of people's private lives except when it offends their religious sensibilities. That's the very definition of conflicted messaging.
And then they get a demagogue like Trump and they can't figure out how to deal with him because they have been so busy painting themselves into this ideological corner that any reasonable candidate can't even win a local election thanks to the Tea Party and social conservatives.
I bet the establishment Republicans think they're in the Prisoner's Dilemma.
You mean, they're held hostage in a resort, with a large, balloon-like rover that captures or kills anyone who tries to escape?
Similar to the upcoming US election results
"I still wonder how it is possible that the major parties can't come up with a single decent candidate. "
FTFY.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
getting free stuff under Sanders
That myth comes almost exclusively from the right. Sanders never claims that this stuff will be outright free. He very plainly explains how single payer health care will be paid for with taxes. He very plainly explains how college tuition will be paid for with taxes. Nobody who has paid any attention to Sanders subscribes to this absurd mythology that these things are just magically free.
More importantly, the people who actually pay attention do realize that those two items in particular though will in the long run pay huge dividends. There is no better investment a government can make than in education; the ROI is usually around 6:1 or better. Single payer healthcare is also a proven economic winner as the increased efficiencies, reduction in disgusting payouts to CEOs, and uniform accessibility improve things across the board.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If the democrats nominate Sanders, however, it will be a GOP bloodbath
No, it won't. If the Dems are dumb enough to nominate Sanders the GOP will frame the election as "Capitalism vs. Socialism" and Bernie will get destroyed. Sorry.
There has only been one national poll so far that has shown a GOP candidate beating Hillary
You' assume Clinton will still be running by November despite having pulled several felonies with her private email server and failure to handle classified information. Not everyone will ignore that.
What's stopping them is a fundamental flaw in the focus of the party. The republican party at its core is there to push the agenda of the rich. In order to do that they need to convince the poor and uneducated to vote against their best interests. Republicans can't win by being honest so they have to use the subterfuge of abortion, coded racism, xenophobia, gun rights paranoia to get elected. Over the years they have stoked the fears and stupidity and have created a voting horde of zombies. This worked very well for a while but now you have rich people like the Koch brothers who would rather have direct control of the Zombie horde. So the Koch's have a political apparatus that is at least three times the size of the political apparatus of the republican party. You have other players also trying to take direct control of the Zombies.
Now the other problem is side of the problem is that of "decent candidates". The problem here again lies at the root of the purpose of the republican party... to further the goals of the rich. Republicans tend to pick(draft) candidates from business who they think will win an election. These candidates for the most part have no history of public service and often don't understand the role of government or how it works. They just take their orders, copy the legislation that was given to them by some PAC and repeat talking points. Democrats, on the other hand, generally have to work their way up doing real community service. The outlook is completely different. You have to demonstrate that you can and have worked hard for the working man in order to be a democrat on the national stage. Remember all the derisive comments about how Obama was a community organizer (like that's a bad thing?)? That's because the republicans don't see the US as a team or a community where helping each other out is valuable. It's more of a "fuck you, I've got mine" mentality rather than a serious problem solving mindset.
Now there are still a few old school republicans in the senate who take their responsibilities seriously but they are being replaced with the new and improved scorched earth republicans. The house? It only has a majority of republicans because of cheating, AKA gerrymandering. The republicans can't win fair elections so they try their best to disenfranchise voters, gerrymander districts , cut voting hours so working class people have a hard time voting, etc...
Trump is interesting because he's stealing the zombie horde from the Koch's, et al. He's tapped into that lizard brain that Fox News, Limaugh, etc.. have been grooming for decades. They original owners of the zombie horde are pissed, but there's not a lot they can do about it.