#22 - To win democratic elections that are not fully

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi Karen!

For 22, which answer did you select? And what is your thought process on B? That info will help us give you a more helpful answer!

[karen_k]

Hi Emily,

On #22, I originally chose E but looking back, I'm not exactly sure why. I'm assuming that's wrong because the possibility of candidates having other potential flaws does not have an effect on the argument in that it doesn't address the idea of the candidates being influenced by wealthy patrons. I guess my problem in relation to answer choice B lies in that I do not really understand what effect political parties having less varied positions than the candidates do has and so I'm unable to make the connection on why that choice is therefore correct.

[Steve Stein]

Hey Karen,

Great question! That's a tough one. An unwealthy candidate who wants to win non-fully-subsidized democratic elections needs wealthy patrons—so it’s plausible that the candidate might compromise on some views to keep these wealthy supporters happy.

The author doesn’t think this is a problem, though, because the wealthy are distributed among the population and among the political parties in roughly the same way, so each of the parties has its fair share of wealthy patrons. If a democrat wants wealthy supporters, for example, he doesn’t have to change his position to get support because the party has its fair share of wealthy patrons.

The problem with this argument is that a candidate might represent a given party and still conceivably compromise views regarding some specific issues. This is what correct answer choice (B) provides: the author doesn’t consider the fact that a candidate might take positions on many more varied issues than the party—so a candidate could be aligned with the party on all of its chosen political positions but could still potentially compromise on other issues to win over wealthy supporters.

Tough one! Please let me know whether this is clear—thanks!

~Steve

[LSAT2018]

Would it be possible to eliminate answers (A) and (C) because the stimulus refers to 'democratic elections that are not fully subsidized by the government' while such answers refer to 'democracies whose governments do not subsidize elections' in (A) and 'government-subsidized elections' in (C)?

Otherwise, how would I eliminate the other answers?

[Adam Tyson]

That looks like a good way to eliminate at least those two answers, LSAT2018, since they do not deal with the right category of governments.

Answer D can be eliminated because it tells us nothing about whether any candidate, wealth or not, will have to compromise their views.

Answer E is out because we aren't concerned with other flaws - this isn't about perfect candidates, but about whether some may compromise their views in order to gain wealthy patrons.

Only answer B, odd as it is and hard to see how it connects to the premises, deals with the positions of the candidates.

[SGD2021]

Hello,
Does "among" in the stimulus mean "between" or "within" here and on the lsat in general?

[Adam Tyson]

It does! You could also say it means "across". To say that views are similar among political parties is to say that those parties have similar views. And to say that the wealthy are distributed among those parties means that there are wealthy people spread out within those different parties.