Obama is the wrong candidate to indicate dissatisfaction with Romney...there are at least 3 parties.
The election, as most are, appears to be a question about enthusiasm. Simply failing to vote for Romney is at least half as good as voting for Obama in terms of not supporting the GOP's directorialist candidate. However, a vote for Obama does not indicate to the GOP what it needs to know. Furthermore, and very importantly, for anyone not living in Ohio...your vote is not a marginal vote. If you live on the left coast, or the Northeast, your state is voting for Obama. If you live in the south...your state is voting for Romney.
I recommend a vote for Gary Johnson. Balanced budgets, No foreign wars, veto a lot.
- It has half the electoral impact of voting for Obama...which doesn't matter in most states.
- It tells both major parties what's wrong with them.
- Gary Johnson is the strongest libertarian candidate we've seen probably ever...and is currently polling to pick up 10-15% of the 3-way vote in New Mexico.
- A few percent for Johnson in some other states...especailly if it's the margin by which Romney loses...would send a very strong signal to the GOP...much stronger than the signal an Obama vote would.
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While I agree with your assessment, I don't think you have Borepatch's angle quite right. He's saying that ensuring an Obama reelection is the best way to keep the Tea Party energized, which is the only vehicle he sees for real change in the land. He's basically written off both parties as lost causes, so sending a message to the GOP doesn't factor in.
That said, I am currently convinced (still having a hard time staying convinced, but we've had that discussion) by Borepatch's arguments. Not sure I can go as far as he has, though. I don't think I can vote for Obama due to the whole 'malicious intent' point I made in a comment to a previous post...the best I can offer will likely be to abstain from voting for Romney. Voting for Johnson might be a good alternative, though.
I know I can't vote for Obama in good conscience. If the election were tomorrow I'd write in Ron Paul. But the arguments for Paul are also arguments for Johnson, so....
"A few percent for Johnson in some other states...especailly(sic) if it's the margin by which Romney loses...would send a very strong signal to the GOP...much stronger than the signal an Obama vote would."
I might vote for GJ, but we need a better signal. It seems like most smart libertarians should be spending most of their political-thinking-time dreaming up totally different potential solutions... because voting is depressing, disempowering, rigged. We know that tech is changing rapidly; maybe there's some implementation that could be a real (non-violent) force-multiplier. I'm thinking Russ Roberts makes the world's best econo-rap video, something that can be recontextualized in an interesting way.
I would contend a third party vote in Ohio (or other contested swing state) would in fact get more attention from the GOP establishment that is dumping Romney on us this round.
Run a palatable candidate, or lose.
Yours is (as always) a suggestion worth considering. It's the marginal cases where this will have the biggest impact.
You're likely a little more hopeful than I that there are adults left in the GOP hierarchy, but optimism is a better way to live than pessimism.
Another point in favour of voting for Johnson (or whoever the LP candidate ends up being): If enough people do it and the LP candidate can get 5% of the popular vote, the party will qualify for matching federal funding in the next election.
This will help create a situation where either the Republican Party reforms itself, or it will hemorrhage Tea Party members to the LP. It will also help pull people from the Democrat Party who are only Democrats because of the Republican Party's constant pandering to the social conservative / religious reich elements.
I think there is a lot to be said for sending a message to the GOP, which can only be done by voting third party.
Jake,
I like the 5% cutoff. I just read an interview with Johnson suggesting that he has 6% support right now in the polls in a 3-way race.
Jake,
And welcome to the blog.
Broken Andy,
Welcome to the blog. And I like the idea of voting third party.
No message to the GOP will be received.
Remember Perot?
Their response to that was Bob Dole.
They won't learn until they're in the woods for a while. Notice the difference in who we get for congress? But it took handing the keys to the Dems with President True Believer in charge to get it.
The problem is the Dems took our repudiation of the RINO congress as solid and broas support of THEIR agenda. That's why we got Romneycare Federale.
Sending a message of a vote without our reasons WHY being distributed to the general populace means no message is sent. Our message will mean what the press decides it means to Joe Average.
My blog for the day tells the RNC to go to hell. They do not listen to their constituents and keep offering the most vanilla candidate they can. I will vote for Ron Paul whether he is on the ballot or not. And we do need to retake the Tea Party from the RNC pirates that took it over. Yes, we need 10's of thousands of Tea Partiers rocking the nation.
Dean,
Welcome to the blog. I'd suggest, however, that a vote for Johnson is better than a vote for Paul.
Angus,
I think a vote for a libertarian candidate, be that Paul or Johnson (I prefer the latter), would indicate real clearly what we want.
And welcome to the blog
Ben C,
Good point. And welcome to the blog.
Response here. In short, I agree, except in swing states... and I'm not even much of a libertarian.
A vote for Johnson is superior to a write-in vote for Paul simply because the latter won't be visible. At the very least, the votes for Johnson will (probably) actually be tallied. The GOP won't get a note after the election saying "Oh, by the way, there were this many write in votes for Paul". There sill, at absolute best, be an indication of how many write in votes there were, total, but unless there are enough to challenge the actual race (and frankly, let's face it, there won't be) they won't bother to note who they are for.
Just my opinion. But hey, I'm also a New Mexico libertarian/anarchist, so I might be biased towards Johnson from the get-go. ;)
Perlhaqr,
Well said and welcome to the blog.
I am fond of pro-johnson anarchists in general.
I'm in Ohio, and I approve the message I intend to send.
the problem is that this all assumes that there will be anything left if we suffer 4 more years of Obama, a considerable assumption. What if the tipping point is closer than we think?
What if the Indonesian Marxist or the Massachusetts socialist (pick one, they are both the same in essence) drives things over the edge before 2016?
My vote will go for one or the other Libertarian this fall, not as a protest, or as a way to make things worse, (Frankly, I think we're screwed even if Paul or Johnson were elected; do the math!) but rather to be able to look myself in the mirror 10 years from now, and know that I did everything I could to stop the coming horror.
It is easy to blame the GOP, but they are simply a reflection of the corruption of American culture and society. We have spent over 70 years teaching people, at an ever-increasing intensity, that they are not responsible for themselves, and destroying American self reliance as a result. The GOP today is what happens when defenders of the status quo fight a retreating rear-guard action against mutated metastasized Marxism. They have no principles, they have no ideational base, they have neither morals, ethics nor ideals. They aren't about liberty, either.
I leave you with two quotes from John Adams:
“Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
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