voting strategically

[cellio]

I've been thinking about this November's election, and the presumption that PA is a swing state and That Matters, and voting for the lesser plausible evil versus voting one's conscience. I started to write about this in comments in someone else's journal (where it was arguably off-topic), so I figured I should bring it here.

Most of the time we vote in elections to address that particular election -- a tactical move (and an important one), in the grand scheme of things. I'm coming to the conclusion that no third party can ever advance so long as everyone does that, so I'm strongly leaning toward making a strategic vote this year, recognizing that the payoff will be delayed if present at all.

Obama or McCain is going to win this election; there is no doubt about that. Thus, many would say, voting for anyone else is throwing away my vote. It's not -- my vote, if accompanied by enough others, could help break the lock the Democrats and Republicans have on the election system. Our voting system is broken; it's set up to favor the two major parties, so it's not a level playing field. There are two ways to attack that -- change the rules (which does not benefit those in power, so it's not going to happen, and yes I've written to my representatives in Congress anyway), or get enough votes to appear on the radar. Both are, of course, highly unlikely, but if everyone says "it won't happen so I won't try" then it certainly won't happen. I'm not ready to give in to self-fulfilling prophecies.

One vote for Obama or McCain does not matter for that candidate -- not even in a swing state, I don't think. (Has PA's stake in any election been decided by as few as 10,000 votes?) One vote for someone else also does not matter for that candidate -- he can't win. But it does matter, a tiny little bit, for his party, and maybe for other parties in general. Enough votes can mean ballot access next time. Enough votes can mean someone else showing up in election returns, which can lead to people asking "who the heck are those guys who got 2%?", which can help in other future races. Enough votes could mean media coverage (with the same result). Or it might not, but it certainly won't if the votes aren't there.

Now granted, minor parties should stop trying for the big races and work up from smaller ones. That would be the right long-term approach that might bear fruit in my (hypothetical) grandkids' generation. But if the only tools available to me (given that I'm not willing to run a campaign) are major elections, I'll work with those as opposed to working with none at all.

I care about this, but let's be frank: demonstrably, I do not feel strongly enough about this to dedicate significant resources to it; I am not a community organizer, a lobbyist, or a campaigner. I'm just one person -- who leans toward a minor party -- with one vote, and I want to use it judiciously. I'm the moral equivalent of the folks who donate $10 to a campaign -- definitely in "every little bit helps but this bit doesn't help a lot" territory.

Four years ago I voted for the lesser evil because I perceived a real national risk should the greater evil win. Doing my part there didn't make a difference, and I find Hillel's words running through my brain: if not now, when? When will it ever be "safe enough" to vote for a minor-party candidate for president? It's real easy to fall into the trap of believing that next time will be different and "just this once" I should do the expedient thing, only to have "next time" never come. Is the tactical situation now so important that I should sacrifice a strategic vote for it?

So I'm leaning toward voting for the long term, but I'm open to arguments otherwise. (See also, if you like, the discussion from four years ago.)

Comments

[jducoeur]

Some thoughts:

The tactical vs. strategic question is an interesting and subtle one. I don't think voting third party strictly for its own sake has a lot of value: the meme that that's simply a protest vote is too deeply ingrained, and I don't see that getting shaken out. For it to make a difference, people have to be perceived as voting *for* specific alternatives, to give them political viability. Barr makes the Libertarian Party more plausible, although at the cost of making it more like the big parties. (That is, he will probably do a bit better than usual because he's adopting a "big tent" approach.)

That said, the tactical considerations have gone up a notch in my book. While I'm suspicious of McCain's instincts in foreign policy (and I am quite sure his economics would be a disaster), I think he'd muddle along somewhat adequately. Palin, OTOH, is downright scary to me: she's exactly the kind of know-nothing populist I've come to distrust most deeply, and appears to share too many of Bush's flaws -- while the Democratic rhetoric about McCain being another four years of Bush is somewhat overblown, saying the same about Palin might well be true. She looks to be bad enough that keeping her away from the White House becomes Important.

Or to look at it another way, I'm *also* voting strategically, but with a different strategy. As far as I'm concerned, the greatest danger the country faces right now isn't the two-party system, it's the growing tendency towards extremism. So I'd far rather have a pragmatic centrist (which, when you actually look at his history and style, Obama is) in favor of any of the more-extreme alternatives on offer, precisely because I think it's very important to herd the politicians back towards the center. I may not agree with him on every issue, but I think he's likely to bring back a more appropriate and thoughtful style of governance, and is likely to get better results overall as a result.

(Or to put it even more simply: I trust a smart technocrat more than I do *any* party affiliation. Obama's closer to that description than any candidate I've seen in a fair number of years...)