election-year dilemma

[cellio]

I'm feeling conflicted about November's election. I can just hear the majority of my readers now: "You doofus! You live in a swing state! It's a no-brainer; you have to vote for Kerry!"

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".

Comments

[tangerinpenguin.livejournal.com]

It seems like there are two questions here:

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.

[cellio]

I agree that going for lower-level races is the better idea. I wish the Libertarian party would do that more often. Right now the only way I can support them (electorally, that is; I'm not talking finances) is to vote in the races they do participate in. But you're probably right that this year is not the time.