They Only Have to Win Once

The current Forbes includes a round-up of "Thoughts" re politics, including John Kenneth Galbraith's "Politics consists of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."

Wendell Cox tipped me to the Florida vote on high-speed rail; by a 2-1 margin, voters repealed a state constitutional requirement that high-speed rail be built.

Voters wisely saw that the amendement made no sense in the absence of a constitutional rule that requires people to ride high-speed rail.

Tripping around the net, however, I see that voters in Maricopa County, Austin and Denver voted to build more rail transit.

They only have to win once. In Phoenix, for example, rail transit initiatives had lost many times. When the stakes are big enough, however, the advocates simply re-group after each loss. Because they know that they only have to win once.