More bloggers come out with their preferences:
Of these, McCardle's postion seems to be the most deeply thought out. At least the most deeply explained. But even she goes with the general trend. Each one is voting for the lesser evil.
I was chatting with a friend the other day about this same thing. If you vote for a lesser evil, you're still voting for evil. And the parties will continue to give us what we vote for, rather than avoid what we vote against. That's an integral feature of the primary system.
Stop voting for evil and the parties will stop delivering it to us on the ballot.
I'm not adovcating that you don't vote. I'm advocating that you vote for someone you can support and truly want to lead the country. In many cases, this means third-party or write-in votes.
As a thought exercise, imagine what would happen if every voter picked someone positive and voted, write-in or otherwise, for that person. How many electoral votes would Howard Dean get? How many for McCain, Giuliani, Nader, or even Badnarik?
Answer: enough to make the party etablishment have to change their shorts.
It's no great stretch to imagine Vermont, Arizona, New York, and even California going for someone other than the major party nominees. Florida? Your guess is as good as mine. And even small states could no longer be considered safe for eith party. They would have to work to generate a broad-based, postitive appeal rahter than focus their efforts on a "better than THAT guy" message.
Presidents might actually have to lead.
The aternative is the status quo - every four years we have to pick the lesser evil, and every four years the choices get marginally worse. Those who are holding their noses to vote for Bush or Kerry to prevent a win by the other - that's a vote for the status quo. (Don't misunderstand - if you actually think either of these guys would make a good President for the next four years, punch that chad!)
If we all stop voting for evil, sooner or later, evil will stop showing up on the ballot.
Posted by wasylik at October 31, 2004 09:11 AM | TrackBack