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Comments

Jason Failes

Does Greta Christina summarize this entire issue eloquently and, somehow, optimistically?

Yes. Without a doubt.

Will anyone "Digg" this article?

We shall see.

Will I vote for Obama?

Sorry, Canadian.

Infophile

Hey, I'm Canadian too, and I'm voting Obama. Granted, I happen to also be American, so that may have something to do with it... But in my defense, I only became American so I could vote in elections like this.

Justin

Thank you, Greta, for making this argument clearly and powerfully.

This raises the question, though, of what we *should* do to solve the underlying problem here. How can we change the system so we get a chance to make our real preferences known?

If I may get on my soapbox for a moment, the real problem here is that the election system we use is itself broken, and in fact was in large part designed by the major parties for their own benefit. How is it broken?

Well, the thing is, your argument works for almost every single election. With a few rare exceptions, it implies you should never, ever, vote third party, or select a candidate in a primary who isn't a "centrist." Because by doing so, you're always implicitly promoting the person you least want to win.

This is clearly an insane way to run a democracy, but man is it nice if you're in the ruling parties. We can't work locally to grow a better third party, or even effectively control the democrats much. By doing so, we're always acting against our interests.

The solution has to start with election reform. There are a lot of proposals, such as instant runoff, condorcet, approval voting, proportional representation, and so on. And the one thing they have in common is that they're fantastically better than what we have now.

Or we can just suck it up and hope sending letters to the democrat will work, and be disgusted every year that there's nothing we can do by voting.

Christine

As I believe Senator Obama said himself when discussing an energy bill he voted for, "The perfect should not be the enemy of the good." My boyfriend (who on his moderate days is a raging socialist) is going to vote for Obama, but he feels like he's getting the lesser of two evils, and it's not much less. I'm going to show him this post-- hopefully it'll make him feel a little better about things. I, for one, am honest-to-goodness excited to be able to vote for Barack Obama. I know he won't be perfect, but he's going to do a world of good for this country. So much better than McPalin.

Greta Christina
This raises the question, though, of what we *should* do to solve the underlying problem here. How can we change the system so we get a chance to make our real preferences known?

Justin, you make a fair point. And the solutions you suggest are ones I either agree with or think are worth considering. To add to them, I would also repeat something I wrote in this piece:

"if you think we should have a strong third party, then by all means, work to build it from a local level up."

If you think the Democratic party is broken and needs a strong third party to shake it up, I don't think the thing to do is to vote Green in the Presidential election. I think the thing to do is support Green candidates in elections for school board. And then city council. And then mayor. And then state house of representatives. And then... you get the idea.

I'd also support doing whatever we have to do to end the @#$%&! electoral college. The electoral college means the Presidential candidates don't just run to the center -- they run to what's considered the center in a handful of states.

Any other thoughts on that? How do we get the attention of the Democratic Party if they know they can count on our vote in every Presidential election?

Chris Hallquist

As someone who plans on doing a write-in, I'm not doing so because I disagree with Obama on one teeny issue. I'm doing so because I've never found him at all attractive. His policy proposals have a please-everyone-ism about them that seems like a recipe for disaster: cut almost everyone's taxes, raise spending, get out of Iraq, but stay in Iraq to fight al-Queda. He freely engages in anti-free-market rhetoric, and sees the government (and implicitly, himself) as our savior. And I just can't stomach the thought that he's anywhere close to being the best the Democrats can do. I don't demand a perfect candidate, but we'd be better off as a country if every voter had a threshold below which there's no way a presidential candidate is getting your vote.

Kit Whitfield

And I just can't stomach the thought that he's anywhere close to being the best the Democrats can do.

Please, for the good of humanity, take an anti-nausea pill and vote. The American government affects lots of people like us - citizens of other countries who have to live with American fall-out but can't vote in American elections. Watching people stand by and not use their votes is horrifying.

We're all on the griddle here, but only some of us have fire extinguishers. If you don't use yours, even in an imperfect way, you're letting us all burn.

Elliott

This is brilliant! Thank you for expressing it. I found it mirrored on LiveJournal at joreth's page, and I plan to forward this around a bit, if it's ok with you.

Nosmo King

As I've said onstage on many occasions, what's wrong with the lesser of two evils? It's LESS EVIL, for crying out loud, which is always, and I mean ALWAYS, better than MORE EVIL. Nothing wrong with that. Being a glass half empty type, I even tend to think of GOOD things as just A BUNCH LESS EVIL things. But maybe that's just me.

--Nosmo King

Chris Hallquist

Watching people stand by and not use their votes is horrifying.

I feel like Greta in her posts on cheating: I am using my vote, not just in the way you want me too. There may be good arguments why you are right, the fact that voting third-party is the same as not voting isn't among them. I can't believe we're still hearing that nonsense line.

Sabrina

*standing ovation*
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this post. I am so grateful. I've been trying to argue this on my very liberal blogs (blogs that make the Daily Kos look like a bunch of Republicans) but I'm nowhere near as eloquent as you. I hope you don't mind but I will probably be linking to this post :) Thank you!

Joreth

I am using my vote, not just in the way you want me too. There may be good arguments why you are right, the fact that voting third-party is the same as not voting isn't among them.

The fact is that voting third party is one less opposing vote for McCain, so it IS the same as not voting, for these purposes. Your third party candidate will not win, and in an election that is this close, you are effectively throwing your vote away where it could be doing some good by opposing McCain.

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