The Greatest American
Discovery Channel is running a program on the Greatest American. Out of , five remain for an American Idol style vote of who will be number one.
Here are the candidates in alphabetical order:
Benjamin Franklin
Martin Luther King Jr.
Abraham Lincoln
Ronald Reagan
George Washington
My top pick? Nope, not Reagan. In fact here’s how I’d rank them:
Benjamin Franklin
Abraham Lincoln
George Washington
Martin Luther King Jr.
Ronald Reagan
Yep, Benjamin Franklin would be my #1. There simply wouldn’t be a United States without him.
How would you rank them?
June 25th, 2005 at 7:17 pm
1) Fury
2) Frost
3) ???
4) ???
5) ???
June 25th, 2005 at 11:03 pm
I always knew Fury was the favorite.
June 29th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
While ranking our choices is important and interesting here, we have to realize that all that was taken into account was our number one choice–the rest don’t matter. But that meant that Reagan’s win MIGHT not really represent what we voted for.
If Reagan won with 24 percent, it means 76 percent of voters were against him for first choice; so we can’t be sure that this poll really reflects public opinion. For example, given their respective records on civil rights, Lincoln (the second place candidate) would quite likely have been preferred over Reagan by most supporters of Martin Luther King Jr. So basically if the majority of voters—not a simple plurality—had to come to a consensus about the “Greatest American,” Reagan might very well not have won. We’ll never know of course, but either way we need a better system that captures the true consensus as to who the Greatest American is.
Next year, AOL should use instant runoff voting (IRV), the same system used to decide nominations for the Oscars. Sen. John McCain and DNC Chairman Howard Dean all currently support IRV.
(For more on IRV see: www.fairvote.org/irv)
June 29th, 2005 at 4:46 pm
FWIW, I don’t think you could ever a true consensus of the Great American, so this whole thing really couldn’t be anything more than an excerise in simple entertainment.
You raise a valid point about how Lincoln & King, could have, in effect, split the same voter base, but then that also suggest allowing people to move their vote *to* Reagan too. It’s not a valid assumption to say his vote would stay the same.