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

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

I'm having this debate with myself right now as well. The thought of having the rest of my beleaguered civil liberties flushed away is pretty scary, which inclines me to once again vote for the shit that stinks slightly less. On the other hand, as you observe, if everyone follows this line of reasoning the two-party system will remain entrenched. I do vote for third-party candidates in state and local elections.

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.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

I understand how you feel (yes, despite the Kerry sign in our front yard). Kerry wasn't my first choice for president either (I wanted Kucinich, who may as well have been a third party canidate). But given the damage Bush has done to our world reputation and our civil liberties, I think getting him out of office is the most important thing.

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.

[goljerp]

OK,

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.

[sui66iy.livejournal.com]

The problem here is that the U.S. voting system is stupid. Now, Arrow's Impossbility Theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_impossibility_theorem) shows that no voting system is perfect, but there are a lot out there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method) that would solve this problem for you. Unfortunately, because we use first-past-the-post voting, we tend to wind up with a two-party system (see Duverger's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law)).

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.)

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

There are two points I tend to make when talking with people who would like to vote for a third-party candidate, and actually want my advice. I'm assuming that since you asked...

(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.

[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.

[sethg]

The last time anyone bothered to poll in Massachusetts, Kerry led Bush by 26 points. I'll trade with you.

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?

[siderea]

Hmm. I hope to respond at more length when I have time, but I want to be sure to contribute a few things to this conversation:

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.

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

I may be in a similar situation, though New Jersey isn't really a swing state (it's heavily Democratic). However, though I loathe Kerry more than Bush, I won't be voting for either of them. Either it will be Libertarian Party candidate Bednarik, or Constitution Party candidate Peroutka (who may actually hew a bit closer to the Constitution, though my heart is with the Libertarian), for me.

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.

[geekosaur]

I do understand how you feel. Unfortunately, in the absence of an STV system or similar — and in the presence of the current system of election boards which are all too often rigged in favor of maintaining a two-party system (I spent 8 years working with/for the Cuyahoga County, OH (Cleveland and vicinity) Board of Elections; the old saw about not watching sausage and politics being made definitely applies) — I am at this point resigned to only ever having the "choice" of voting for the slightly (if that) lesser evil.

[sdavido.livejournal.com]

Like many others, I understand how you feel. In my Sociology class today we talked about Jaywalking, and I explained to my students how they really are all libertarians *evil grin*.

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.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I have read (though I don't have a citation handy) that Pennsylvania is a key swing state, and Pittsburgh is a swing area within Pennsylvania, so your vote may well have a disproportionate weight. Certainly, residents of the Pittsburgh area are receiving a disproportionate amount of political advertising.

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.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

I'll be honest: I plan to vote for Bush.

(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.

[sethg]

Patrick Nielsen Hayden had a comment on his blog a while back, which I'm too lazy to look up and link to properly, but it went something like this:

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.

[jducoeur]

Hmm. I agree with a lot of what has been said before, particularly siderea's analysis. But one more point needs to be emphasized. In this particular case, we're not just talking about a quantitative difference between the big-party candidates, we're talking about a *qualitative* one.

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...