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election-year dilemma
Well, except, I don't support Kerry. I don't support Bush either, and he'd be the worse choice of those two. I support Michael Badnarik, who comes closest among those running to my beliefs about government.
There are those who say that voting for a minor-party candidate is throwing my vote away. Actually, though, a vote for a minor-party candidate does more than a vote for a candidate you don't believe in. Every vote for a minor-party candidate helps that minor party get closer to the spotlight, which could (eventually) help break the stranglehold the Republicans and Democrats have on the American public's attention. By voting for the person I believe in, I (1) express what I really believe, which is supposed to be the point, (2) help keep the Libertarians on the ballot and voter-registration cards in PA, and, if enough others do the same thing, (3) get at least a few other people saying "so just what are Libertarians, anyway?". Not voting for a minor-party candidate because he can't win creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The alternative is to abandon those principles because "this year really matters" and vote for the least-bad viable candidate, which is Kerry. I disagree with Kerry (and his party) on many things, which is why I can't give him my first-tier support, but the thought of Bush appointing any more judges to further savage our civil liberties is frightening. Am I obligated to compromise my principles to try to prevent that outcome? But if I do, am I not just responding to scare tactics? So far as I know no one has recently won Pennyslvania by even a four-digit number of votes, let alone the few hundred that led to the Florida fiasco or the single vote that I represent. By voting for Kerry, am I not saying that minor parties are interesting as parlor games but not when it really matters? Where are those principles now? As the old joke goes, we've already established what I'd be; now we're just haggling over price. [1]
I've considered looking for a voting partner in a non-swing state. That doesn't help minor parties in PA, but it at least lets me help my candidate at the national level. I didn't support Nader, so I'm unfamiliar with how the vote-sharing scheme worked last time. How do you establish trust? Mind, I'm not convinced that this would be appropriate, but it's an option I'm open to.
With Nader in the race, I am not assuming that any other minor-party candidate will get any attention. But again, there's that self-fulfilling prophecy thing; if no one votes for them because of that, they certainly won't get any attention.
So I welcome further thoughts on the matter. What factors am I failing to consider? I ask that you take as given that I don't support Kerry; let's not do that debate here. This is about the proper application of principles in a messy world.
[1] A man in a bar asks a beautiful woman if she would sleep with him for a million dollars. She says ok, in that case she would. He then offers her $20 and she says "what do you think I am?!" He responds: "we've already established that; now we're just haggling over price".
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Since I don't live in a swing state I might be willing to consider a vote swap with you, but I haven't entirely decided how I feel about the appropriateness of that whole concept.
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All elections matter, not just this one. I don't really like any of the options available to me for president this year (that I'm aware of, at least). But, if those of us who disagree with mainstream America vote following the best dictates of our consciences, we're likely to end up with four more years of Bush, and I don't like to think about what the USA will look like after that. So, I'm willing to support the lesser evil in hopes of greater good.
I don't think you've overlooked anything, or that you haven't already considered the things I've written here. But, I'd urge you to consider the bigger picture with the election this year. If Bush wins (and he is likely to do so, I'm afraid), our civil liberties will be in even more danger than they are now. So, I really think the principled thing to do is to vote for Kerry this time.
I will step off my soapbox now. Like I said, you already know these things. But, you asked for opinions, and that's mine.
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Thanks for the feedback! No worries about the soapbox; I did ask, and it's not that high a soapbox anyway.
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Realistically this year, either Kerry or Bush is going to win.
I'm afraid that if Bush wins, things are going to get significantly worse than they are now. Already he's managed to go from a surplus to the largest deficit the U.S. has ever had. He's gotten us into a quagmire of a war in Iraq, while letting North Korea fester and probably develop real weapons of mass destruction. And this is while he's been concerned about not seeming too radical, because of course he's been running for reelection since he lost the last one.
I'm not just worried about the federal judges that he'll appoint (for life) to eviscerate our civil liberties, I'm worried about the Supreme Court justices he'll appoint. I'm worried that with a Republican-controlled congress (a very real possibility) there will be (further) legislative erosions.
I think that what third parties need to do is start fielding real candidates for congress[1]. The elections are smaller, and it's possible for a third party candidate to really connect with people, and run on local issues. After there are 30 or 40 Libertarians in the house, then the Democrats and Republicans will really have to listen to 'em. (Look at the power the small parties have in Israel!) After that happens, then a national candidate will have some influence.
[1] In New York, there are other parties which run candidates... but it's usually just the Democrat (or Republican) on a different line.
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I was including them, yes.
I think that what third parties need to do is start fielding real candidates for congress
I agree. One of the things that frustrates me about the Libertarian party is that they focus on the big seat instead of the little stuff that could, eventually, lead to real influence. I understand the appeal; no one pays attention to the little stuff, really, so you're looking at a decades-long process to get onto the radar, at best. On the other hand, if they'd done that 30 years ago... So, for better or for worse, boosting the vote count in the big-ticket races is the only game in town.
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Hmm... if there weren't a history of this happening[1], I'd think I was being paranoid to wonder if, in fact, outside forces had infiltrated the Libertarians and steered them towards this ineffectual course of action. I mean, if Ross Perot, who was willing and able to spend oodles of money, won 19% of the vote in '92 (and 8.4% in '96), what makes the Libertarian party think they'll even come close to that in '04? And even if by some quirk of fate a Libertarian became president, what would s/he be able to accomplish with house and senate controlled by other parties with no incentive whatsoever to cooperate with him/her?
[1] For example: COINTELPRO (an FBI program under J. Edgar Hoover) inserted agents into groups like The Communist Party, SNCC, and others to discredit, misdirect, and otherwise neutralize these organizations.
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One of the things that frustrates me about the Libertarian party is that they focus on the big seat instead of the little stuff that could, eventually, lead to real influence.
Cynicism: The presidential election is a media circus with soundbytes, but no hard discussion. That's why most people like it and why I detest it.
Practicality: The Free State Project is not explicitly associated with the Libertarian party, but they have the right idea. Last I checked they had picked New Hampshire. Willie and I are considering visiting there this summer to see if it's someplace we'd like to live.
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So my advice would be to think about how to convince people to change our voting system. There are better ways. And in the meantime, vote for Kerry. The Libertarians won't win, and because of our messed up system, your vote probably won't meaningfully help them.
(I do, however, admire the principles of your position.)
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Still, it's worth pestering my so-called representatives about. Thanks for the idea.
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1) the small parties get a huge amount of power. Mostly they use this to grab money for their private projects.
2) You never know what you will get as people change their platforms to get a government together.
3) You have no accountability. In the US I can point to 1 cogressman and say he represents me. Here I can't. And once you are above a given point on a party list you will be in no matter what. I
4) No one is really responsable to a specific area in the kennest. If the Golan thinks they need this, or the Gush Dan area thinks they need that there is no one to talk to.
5) I pretty much hate them all, and will probably not vote in the election her, or at least hold my nose when I do. I honestly can't say that there is any party here that I want to vote for.
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Do you think that it would help if there was a larger cutoff for the Knesset? I mean, if "X" were larger, or perhaps if a party needed to get more than 3 seats (3x) to get any? Or what if half of the seats in the Knesset were tied to districts, and the other half distributed as they are now?
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(I also note that some other posters have made these points, or similar ones.)
Point one: We live in a country that goes by strict plurality voting for federal elections, and does not have an automatic runoff ballot. What that means is that you cannot rank your choices like you can in certain other countries. I've had friends who made a point of voting for the Green candidate, for example, because although the Democrat was their second choice, they wanted to make the statement of voting Green. If we had runoff voting, I'd say go ahead and list them as your first two choices. But since we don't, and you know that there is no chance your first choice would win, it might make more sense to give your vote to the realistic second choice.
I further encourage people to write and call their legislators and ask them to propose a bill to create runoff voting. I know that my state rep is actually in favor of changing the way we vote for exactly the reasons I stated -- he'd like us to be able to cast our first choice votes for a minor party, but then not have our vote wasted if that candidate loses (as usually happens).
Point two: A friend of mine from Europe pointed this out to me. When a new party forms in his country, they don't try to win the top spot right away. Instead, they run candidates in a lot of local elections, and create a grassroots movement for themselves. My suggestion to you would be to work towards getting Libertarian candidates elected to the lower offices (perhaps run yourself?) first. Doing so might also assuage guilty feelings for not voting for the candidate they put forth for president.
I hope this is clear enough; I haven't had time to think it all through.
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I also agree with you about going for the lower-level races first and working up. That's my biggest frustration with the Libertarian party -- no sense of long-term strategy.
perhaps run yourself?
I strongly considered it when I lived in Swissvale. Now I live in solid Democrat-land, so I'd (1) have to pretend to be one of them and (2) probably fail anyway because the patronage is strong here. But maybe someday.
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First, of the choices you have for president, who's the better? It's almost never a matter of who's the "best" choice for the job - I personally like Clark more than Kerry on several points, but Clark is not an option.
Fortunately or unfortunately, no third party candidate is an option - not even close this year - so from that point of view the Libertarian candidate is no more a viable choice than Clark and we're both stuck with choosing from lesser options. That choice is no less vital because we don't get our dream candidates.
The second issue is advancing the cause of third parties in general, or your favorite third party in particular. Tilting at the windmill that is the Presidential Election is good for righteous wroth, but has limited effects (especially as a grassroots strategy.) Third parties seem to have more success by putting that energy into local and state races. Both because it's easier to sell folks on sending a Stone Loonie Senator to DC if they've seen it happen to the state senate without disaster, and because you generally need a resume of political office at the next lower level to succeed - e.g. most presidents who weren't VPs were state governors. That's frustratingly slow, but with the exception of Perot (who bypassed a lot of traditional political reality by throwing his own money at it) it's probably the only route to sustainable growth for a third party.
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Something for you to consider: When neoconservatives wanted to wield more power in the political system, they didn't form (or join) a third party and try to draw votes away from the major parties. They worked within the Republican party, becoming a faction to be reckoned with. Look at the Republicans today who, forty years ago, would have been in the mainstream of the party. How much power do they have today?
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trade
Ok, if I decide that trading makes sense, I'll accept your offer. Thanks! (And, of course, if the numbers are looking iffier as we get close to November, we'll re-evaluate.)
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First, "But if I do, am I not just responding to
scare tactics?"
Uh, that depends. Is the actually something to be scared of? If there is, then, no, you're not just responding to scare tactics.
(As an aside, I find this whole "voting on the basis of fear is wrong" meme to be one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. I recommend anyone who has that particular neurosis about fear and it's appropriate role in human life to read Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear. We have the capacity to fear for a reason: it helps keeps us alive and whole. Being alert to fear and regarding it's communications sanely is a basic survival trait -- for the individual and for the society. Simply ignoring all fear is suicidal.)
Do you have something to be afraid of? I think you do. Personally, I -- the rabid ACLU-loving don't-tread-on-me live-free-or-die-NHian civil liberties nut -- have moved way past merely being being worried about my civil liberties going away. I frankly think anyone who is stuck on the civil liberties issue is behind the curve. There's much worse stuff floating around out there gaining momentum.
Let me put it this way: If Kent State happened today, I don't think it would bother the majority of Americans. I think most Americans would think "They were protesters, they deserved to get shot! If you don't want to get shot, don't stand in front of cops holding guns!" I think we're all of one example away from the Executive branch of the goverment concluding that they've been given carte blanche by the American people to turn guns on Americans.
If it should happen that, "Oops!", some protesters get shot, and it turns out not to impact the president's polling numbers and generally doesn't scandalize the population.... then the end is nigh. They will, upon re-election, whether officially or unofficially, impose a state of martial "law" on the country -- knowing they can get away with it. At which point a lot of innocent people are going to get killed, and probably most of them will be in the northeast.
So, yes, I think you do have something to be afraid of.
As to principle: Voting for the candidate you'd best like is not a principle, it's a heuristic. It's a means of getting a result you'd like, not a moral issue. If voting for the superior candidate results in a murderous tyrant being put in control of your country, how is that, morally, any different than "opening a refrigerater door is forbidden on the sabbath because it causes the fridge light to come on"? The light may not come on, but you don't use that as a basis to excuse the action. The murderous tyrant may not be put in control of your country if you neglect to use your vote to oppose him, but why should you use that as a basis to excuse the action?
Knowing, as you, in fact, do, that voting for a third candidate cannot cause a more morally desirable outcome in this election, a vote for that candidate can only be considered to have moral purpose concerning the next election.
So the question then becomes, which do you anticipate will be more morally critical, this election or the next? Really, your question boils down to one of trading the future against the present. You want to cause the most morally desirable outcome, the question is whether to spend your influence on the moral outcome of this election, or on setting up the next. This is a long-term vs. short-term question, a bird in hand vs birds in bush (heh) question.
That makes it seem easy to me: It looks to me like the short-term is so critical, there may not be a long-term. There is no point in speculating on future elections, if an outcome of this election is plausibly that they'll suspend future elections. There's no point in speculating on future elections, if the outcome of this election is to make sure no future election is honest.
Or put another way: First defend Democracy itself, then you can worry about which people to vote for.
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That makes it seem easy to me: It looks to me like the short-term is so critical, there may not be a long-term.
This is a cogent analysis. Thank you.
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Me, too. I am afraid we are about to be plunged into hell, because so many of my fellow citizens want to be plunged into hell; indeed crave it with all their hearts. They will take the rest of us there whether we want to go or not.
I know why this change has happened, but I don't know how to stop what is about to ensue.
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You can pick your maxim. "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" - vote for Bush or Kerry. "The lesser of two evils is still evil" - vote for Cthulhu, and don't pick the lesser evil. :-)
For years, I've been getting tired of voting against a candidate, rather than for a candidate, and I don't want to do it any longer. Practically speaking, I know that either the rich white man with no regard for the Constitution (Bush) will be inaugurated on January 20th, or the even richer white man with no regard for the Constitution (Kerry) will be. Bush deserves to be fired, and Kerry doesn't deserve to be hired. I won't play.
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Still, it's your choice, and I don't think that anything I say is going to convince you to vote for Kerry...
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That being said, you did ask further thoughts, and I can give you one sad fact that might be worth noting.
Do you know what group is doing more to promote Nader (yes, I know he's not your candidate, but he's still an active third party candidate, so please pay attention) and get him on the ballot than any other?
GOP members.
Think about the implications of that.
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I have; I've seen some of that promotion locally.
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I suggest looking at the question from a point of view of ruthless pragmatism--not because I think that you should make the decision from that point of view, but because I think it might help you find new perspectives.
The pragmatic question is "which of these alternatives will best get me the things that I want?" You've established several things that you want:
- Reduced chance of Bush winning
- Greater prominence for third parties, especially Libertarians,
- The sense of integrity of voting in accordance with what you really believe
- et cetera.
I personally think that there is a significant risk of Bush winning, and that there's a lot of benefit to reducing that risk--but that's for you to decide.
I also believe that it is still a principled position to say, "I prefer to vote Libertarian, but I will compromise to avoid an outcome I find more threatening." Compromise is a very political thing to do--but this is our big chance to be political.
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I've noticed that too. I've been getting mailings (from both sides) at the rate of about once every two weeks, and there've been several phone calls (which annoys me -- they shouldn't have been exempted under the telemarketing law). Just yesterday the AFL-CIO called on the mistaken impression that I agree with them; either that was an actual human or the recordings have gotten more convincing. (The answering machine got it, so there was no interaction.)
I also believe that it is still a principled position to say, "I prefer to vote Libertarian, but I will compromise to avoid an outcome I find more threatening."
Thanks for this analysis.
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(ducks as a hail of rotten tomatoes comes her way)
That said, on to my mini-rant about elections. Aside from issues related to the dominance of the Democrats and the Republicans, I think one of the real difficulties we face nowadays has to do with the pervasiveness of polling and "media moments" -- soundbites, photo ops, etc. This is a serious problem for both parties, IMHO. One of the things that I have never understood about Kerry is the fact that so many members of the Democratic Party establishment were plumping for him b/c he was supposedly the most "electable" of the party's multiple candidates for president. Uhhhh ... 'scuse me, but why? Am I missing something? OK, I'm digressing a little. (I don't like Kerry.) I just find it frustrating that we've come to this -- that decisions about who should run for president should have so much to do with appearance, height, hairstyle, orthodontia, etc. and that questions of who is best equipped to articulate and implement a party's platform should receive comparatively less attention.
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It seems like the proportion of people (among the population as a whole) who will actually seriously consider the decision is down. Or maybe it's just more obvious now; I know plenty of people of my parents' and grandparents' generations who proudly vote a straight party ticket every election, without even considering the specific candidates or platforms, and they've been doing that since long before the sound bite became prominent. The pervasiveness of the media, in combination with the increased communication among large groups of people (largely due to the Internet), might just be bringing this out more.
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I agree with you here. It's one of the reasons I gripe about the media stuff -- I think the predominant style of presentation is not conducive to serious thinking. But you're right about it not being just a contemporary phenomenon. My parents (and grandparents) were and are, with rare exceptions, all yellow-dog Democrats. Until just a few years ago, I was too. Then certain things happened and I began to think about things I'd never considered before. To my (initial) horror, I realized that these thoughts were leading me to stop voting Democratic. The first time I voted for a Republican, I felt so weird. But I got over it. ;)
I also would like to see the Libertarian Party gain prominence, though I don't consider myself a libertarian in every sense of the word. But I would like the option.
On that note, there's another option I'd kinda like -- in the Soviet Union, voters had the option, if they did not like any of the candidates on the list, of crossing off names with the aim of *excluding* particular people from the election. For most of Soviet history, this option was theoretical and meaningless; those exercising it tended to attract unwelcome attention from the authorities (despite the official policy of secret balloting), and for most posts there was only one candidate anyway. In the late 1980s, however, as elections began to be opened to smaller parties and independent candidates, people began utilizing the crossing-off option. I remember seeing TV footage of an elderly woman shaking her ballot at the camera before she put it in the box and exulting as she pointed out all of the Communist Party candidates she'd crossed off. In theory, I would like this option. In practice, I think it might present problems since it does create the possibility of having all candidates excluded, meaning that it might take unreasonable amounts of time and effort to fill offices. Nevertheless, I know I would take a lot of pleasure in crossing off certain names.
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I like the idea, and I've seen it work in smaller-stakes settings (clubs and the like). It would work well for primaries, I think. It probably has no hope of working for a general election -- all the Democrats and Republicans will just scratch off each others' candidates.
The implementation I'm most familiar (for a local branch of a club, so we're talking really low stakes) is this: you mark any candidates you like "not acceptable" and rank the rest; anyone who garners one-third not-acceptables is dropped and the rest are run by preference ballot. This sort of thing might have caused the Democratic primary to come out differently, as the lower-powered folks lik Kucinich might have stood a chance.
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In a market economy, there's lots of room for producers to match their goods to the precise desires of consumers. If you want breakfast cereal, you can go to any reasonably-sized supermarket and find dozens of options, and you're likely to find one that you consider pretty good.
Elections can't work like that. You have a very limited number of choices, they all suck, and you have to pick the one that in your opinion sucks least.
Unfortunately, a lot of people approach a ballot and want it to work like a marketplace, and when they see that their options for President are not as finely calibrated to their liking as their options for breakfast cereal, they become cynical about the whole political process. This is bad for democracy.
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Elections can't work like breakfast cereal, but they could do better than a coin. Half a dozen real options and a run-off ballot would seem to allow for better options without getting ridiculous. But that won't happen unless we can get them to change the system, alas.
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I mean, there are a lot of people who disagree with Kerry on a policy level, and I don't have a problem with that -- I like the man, but I certainly disagree with his economics. But it's hard to disagree that he is sane, intelligent, and (at least by political standards) reasonably honest, and is basically a representative of the status quo ante.
Now look at the other side. Bush is clearly obsessive, to be kind. He hasn't just lied the way we expect of politicians -- he's lied pathologically, since before he took office. He's shown a disregard for the American political system that is downright terrifying -- the degree of cynicism about America as a political institution that emanates from the White House today is breathtaking. They're not even hiding their agenda: they are trying to create a police state as quickly as possible, and are basically hacking around anything that stands in their way, with an explicit contempt for the notion of civil rights. The current Republican party is about *power*; any claims to the contrary are basically a whitewash.
(And if you think I'm scared -- you're damned right I am. But it's not a fear that comes from the empty rhetoric being parrotted on TV; rather, it comes from paying close attentions to the trends of the past couple of years, and pretty coolly examining where they are heading. We're teetering on an edge that, historically, has often led from Republic to Empire.)
The choice here isn't between bad and worse. It's between mediocre and horrifying. This is *not* business as usual -- we are in the most literal sense talking about saving the country from its own worst instincts here, from a very real chance of the whole ball of twine unraveling. Getting Bush out of office has to be the highest priority for the moment; after that, we'll have the freedom to deal with the rest.
And bear in mind, I'm speaking as a William Weld Republican. It's strategically critical to hit back at the hyperconservatives where it counts, because it's the only way that the libertarian wing of the Republican party is ever going to get a chance again. And realistically, that's the only likely avenue for sane libertarians to take.
Politics is entirely about strategy. Principles are a fine thing, but they have to be applied correctly: not in futile statements, but as a guideline, choosing political paths most likely to produce the results closest to those principles. And from that viewpoint, the only sane path at the moment is to not only support Kerry, but to do so loudly and enthusiastically, to help convince others of the same. Even if you don't like his policies, he is at least the right opponent, likely to return the political debate to a rational playing field...
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Will you grant me "between bad and horrifying"? Bush's potential police state is horrifying; Kerry won't destroy the country that way, but he'll bring a lot of economic ruin and government bloat if he has his way (so it's best if the Democrats don't take Congress if Kerry wins). I agree that this is the lesser evil, because we preserve the republic, but some of the hyperbole from the far left (and I'm not talking about anything that's been said here, which has all been rational and above-board) also scares me. Both sides are misrepresenting things to sway a (they hope) gullible America; they're just doing it with different issues.
I think you're right that voting for Kerry is the strategically-correct move. I just wish I didn't feel so dirty doing it.
On the other hand, a single Kerry term focused on cleaning up the damage that's been done under Bush might not leave a lot of time to do new and different damage. So as long as we keep it to one term...
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Kerry's only made one really irresponsible economic claim, with the offshoring thing. I'm annoyed by that one, since it's hyperbolic nonsense and doesn't fit the facts. OTOH, I don't think he's likely to *do* much about it -- his record isn't terribly protectionist. (This is why I desperately didn't want Gephardt to win the nomination: he's a confirmed protectionist, with the proven inclination to do major economic damage.)
Like I said, I care mostly about results, and that leans me towards paying more attention to records than to rhetoric. Kerry's record has tended to be fairly classic liberal, but not in the most dangerous ways: a tendency towards statist expansionism, but not too far towards the irrational left. And frankly, even in terms of statism he's better than Bush, who seems entirely comfortable claiming to be a conservative while overseeing an expansion of the state that overshadows that of most liberals' dreams.
That said, I agree that the split Congress/White House seems to be useful for reining in the worst instincts of each. If I could be *certain* that Bush would lose the White House, I'd be fairly sanguine about leaving them in charge of at least one side of Congress. And I don't much care about whether he's in office for one term or two, so long as it breaks the back of the extremist right and gives the moderates a chance to bring things back to sanity...