Furt, I differ from gobear in a key respect, I think: I do believe that voting for third-party candidates can be a viable tactic. Indeed, for the past two elections, I’ve gone third-party in the presidential race.
When you go third-party, you’ve got to consider the following:
What can potentially be gained by a strong showing of the third-party candidate? In 2000, I hoped for two gains: first, I hoped that the Greens would achieve 5% of the vote, making them eligible for matching funds and making them a serious player in US politics. Second, I hoped that the Democrats would realize that moving ever further to the right was going to cost them the votes of progressives. While my first hope failed, I believe I’m seeing my second hope come to fruition now: Kerry is a pretty damn progressive candidate compared to the other serious contenders in this race.
What can potentially be lost by voting for the third-party candidate? In my case, I was casting the vote in North Carolina: Gore had zero chance of winning in this state, zilch, nada. There was really nothing to be lost by voting for Nader in North Carolina.
Do the potential benefits outweigh the potential drawbacks? In my case, certainly so, since there were no potential drawbacks to a Nader vote.
If you can answer “yes” to the third question, then I think you’re making a reasonable voting decision.
However, not voting is never a reasonable decision: it’s the decision of a smug, self-righteous naif who cares more about his own political panache than about the rights and conditions of the people he claims to support.
Olentzero isn’t making a case for a third-party vote: he’s attempting to make a case for not voting, and coming across just as poorly as everyone else I’ve heard try to make this case.
Were I a fiscal conservative, this would be the year above all years that I would vote libertarian.
Potential benefits: send a strong message to the Republican party that abandoning principles of fiscal conservatism will cost them elections; similarly, send a strong message that there are many Republicans who won’t vote for a candidate that abandons civil liberties. Probably see a reduction in the budget deficit.
Potential drawbacks: future tax cuts won’t be implemented. Other policies will be implemented that are anathema to your particular stand.
Do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks? Only you can answer that.
I call it an aberration. You will note that the Supreme Court did not and has not struck down the death penalty as such, merely as it was applied. You will also note that the elected legislators darn near immediately voted it back in, and the elected governors signed those bills. The only way to remove the death penalty effectively is to change the political landscape in such a way that death penalty opponents are elected. Sometimes that involves holding one’s nose while one votes, but it never involves not voting.
I would view the issue as more a class based than a race based issue. By placing emphasis on the race card, you are risking, no, more than risking, you are LOSING the support of those who may support you on moral grounds, but are tired of hearing the word “racist” thrown about willy-nilly. A tactical error, in my opinion. [/hijack]
My reasoning exactly - substitute Colorado for North Carolina. furt, the simple difference between you and Olentzero is that you are going to vote. From what I’ve seen on this board, you will make a reasoned and informed decision. Regardless of whether I believe your decision to be correct, you are at least participating in the process. That’s important in my eyes.
Sexcuse me? I’m all for voting for a viable third-party candidate. That is, a third-party with a grassroots base, that has shown a track record for winning lower offices, maybe has a governor or two, some congressional seats. But quixotic, boutique candidacies merely act as spoilers, helping to take away votes from the major candidates who are their ideological near allies.
Since the only serious contender is Bush, then yes, he makes Kerry look like a progressive. But if your thesis that the Dems were moving back to a more progressive stance were correct, Edwards would be the candidate and Kucinich would have picked up more than 1% of the votes in the primaries.
Well, that’s Olentzero’s only saving grace–both he and you (and I) live in Red states, so (not) voting for Nader doesn’t make a lot of difference in the total result.
Not in North Carolina or Virginia, but disastrously so in swing states like Florida.
Believe me, I’m thinking about it. Voting Libertarian reflects my core beliefs better than voting Dem does, but the Libs have to drop some of their more outlandish proposals to become a viable party with a realistic chance of gaining votes. Moreover, my voting for the Libs is as bad as voting for Nader because it doesn’t hurt Bush.
There’s no such thing as a viable third-party candidate in the US right now; you’ll note that my potential benefits for voting Green or Libertarian didn’t include getting them in office.
Kerry is more progressive than Gore, and he’s running a more aggressive campaign, highlighting differences between himself and Bush. I’m not convinced that Edwards is more liberal than Kerry, although he’s certainly a better orator.
An essential part of my thought process; I was an advocate of vote-swapping, in fact, in which Democrats in solid states would vote for Nader in exchange for a Green in a swing state voting for Gore.
Sure it does - just not as much as a vote for Kerry would. In the same way that Olentzero’s refusal to vote hurts working class interests, your voting for a Libertarian would hurt the Christian Coalition’s interests. But voting for Kerry would hurt those interests more.
If there were even a third party I considered worth my vote this time around, I would gladly go to the polling booth. I voted Nader last time around, much for the same reasons you listed in this post. I’m not voting this time because Nader, in my opinion, is courting the party for whom I wouldn’t vote under any circumstances, and for whom I’ve never voted. That doesn’t mean I won’t vote in 2008, or further on down the line, if there are parties in the race I’d consider worth voting for. My reasons for not voting Democrat in 2000 were exactly the same as now. That hasn’t changed. What has is the agenda of the other alternatives.
There is a large difference between saying a person or an organization is not Marxist simply because you disagree with them (the real “One True Marxist” argument) and saying a person or an organization is not Marxist because they fail to meet even the basic standards of the political philosophy when subject to critical examination. You recall wrongly.
If they’re not going to support the CEDP because they’ve looked at the facts as well and have concluded that the death penalty isn’t racist, that’s one thing. To reject support of the CEDP simply because they’re tired of hearing “racism” (whether justly or unjustly applied) is stupidity.
Nobody’s yet convincingly demonstrated to me that the Democrats represent working-class interests, except through comparison with Bush, i.e. “They won’t be as hostile to those interests as the Republicans.” Lesser hostility != active support. I’d vote for a candidate that actively supports working-class interests, and not one who is merely not as hostile to them as the the other party.
I’m not claiming active support. You don’t understand that it’s in the working class’s interest not to have someone in power that’s going to actively shit on us.
There it is again. “They’re not as likely to, but I can’t say for certain that they won’t. They’re not likely to be as bad as the Republicans, but I can’t guarantee you that they won’t.” Why should that be good enough for anyone that claims to support working-class interests?
I agree. I was alarmed and frankly surprised to see Olentzero waive off Bushistic fascism. I think he does not understand that “Bush” in this instance means a cabal of puppeteers who conrol him and whose interests are rather nefarious.
What Olentzero calls just another harrassed whistle-blower misses the point of what happened. He was not a whistle-blower when he was railroaded; he was a longtime government bureaucrat who had worked with every administration since Nixon. When he reported the massive fraud and cover-up, he wasn’t reporting it to the press; he was reporting it to the government. Not only was he fired (after which, he became a whistle-blower), but his reputation was destroyed, he was found in violation of numerous government regulations, and the friends of Whitehouse power brokers actually profited financially from the disaster by invoicing in small increments — that is, deliberately avoiding public scrutiny of the transactions by cooking the books. Instead of billing the six-figure cost of cleanup, they billed $1,200 separately enough times to match the total amount.
Olentzero once wrote, “I have not yet seen an argument in this thread, or elsewhere, that has convinced me that voting Democrat is in any way furthering my interests.” What I would say to him is that it is not in his interest to be declared an enemy of the state and silenced, and stepped on like a bug. If the law will not shield even one of its own who dares to oppose, then Olentzero — who is already the enemy for being a socialist — will be forced to recede into silence. It will not usher in his revolution. No one will sympathize with him. Like I told him before, this new fascism is presenting a new face. It is being popularized, and people are being conditioned to accept it as normal. The majority of people, already anesthetized by acclimation, will not even notice that their liberty has leaked away. Socialists will be seen as unpatriotic. No one of significance will oppose when socialism and other dangerous political ideologies are made illegal.
Because, Nostradamus, most of us don’t have guarantees about anything. We simply gotta play the odds in this life, and I know that my working-class interests are likely to be better off under a Kerry presidency than under a Bush presidency.
“Good enough?” Hell no it’s not good enough, but in the ballot box, I don’t get my ideal; I only get the three choices outlined earlier in the thread.
Just to summarize what I am saying to my fellow member of the political fringe — in language that I hope he can appreciate — the Bush puppeteers are using the government as their own personal industrial machine. We already have ownership of the means of production by government. Is that why you are satisfied with this state of affairs?
I presume, then, Pastor Niemöller, that if such things come to pass, you will not speak out for me because you are not a socialist?
How wide did you have to stretch your rectum to pull that one out? Did you need both hands? That has to be the single most idiotic thing I’ve seen in this thread. If I were satified with this state of affairs the only political thing I would do is vote Republican in the elections. But since I’m politically active, organizing and mobilizing on issues that concern me, and have explicitly stated so in this very thread, you have no basis to assume I’m at all satisfied with much of anything, nor to assume that this is the reason I’m not voting, especially since I’ve stated time and again why I don’t think the Democrats deserve my vote.
That’s why I don’t look to the ballot box for social or political change. If the choices there aren’t good enough, I’m going to go out and build the choices that are. Like I said earlier, if it looks like there’s somebody worth voting for, ie that will make it easier to build new alternatives by actively supporting them and not just being less hostile to them I’ll gladly go and pull that lever. But “less hostile” isn’t good enough to get me into that booth.
LHoD, TYM thanks for the feedback. Yes, I’d agree that there is a difference in voting the Quixote ticket vs. not voting.
Gobear: I live in the key region of the key state in the country – it’s entirely possible that the entire election will again come down to 500 votes in Florida, one of which will be mine. Would you prefer I stay home rather than vote for W?
Well, the good citizen in me wants you to exercise your right to vote for the candidate of your choice. The partisan side of me would prefer you not vote if you are planning to support Dubya’s villainy.
No, because the partisan side wants Bush to lose the election. Yes, I want Olentzero to exercise his right to vote for the candidate he likes, but I also want him to vote for Kerry. Sorry, I can’t give you a simpler answer.