The Democratic Party has had a rarity, two highly qualified and good candidates this time, and consequently it’s taking a bit of time to decide which of them should be our candidate. People have invested time and money and their personal feelings on one or the other of the two candidates. But if you get peeved that your candidate didn’t win and sit out the election in protest, vote for a third party candidate, or even worse, vote for McCain, you’re condemning the country to at least 4 more years of the same rampant incompetence, cronyism, pandering to the crazy Christian Right, preemptive wars against the wrong enemies, and hatred of anybody different from them as we had under Bush. Only as well as all that, McCain has a violent temper and is borderline senile. And don’t forget, some of the remaining left-leaning Supreme Court judges are getting up there in years. How safe do you think our civil liberties would be if we had another Rhenquist or Alito on the bench?
The media has decided that McCain is a tough maverick and a renegade. But the truth is, he is a Bush neocon through and through, and toes the party line. Take
The Bush-McCain Challenge and see.
But if you get peeved that your candidate didn’t win and sit out the election in protest, vote for a third party candidate… you’re condemning the country to at least 4 more years
I really hate this line of thinking. People can vote for whomever they damn well please and don’t need to be badgered, hectored, or otherwise made to feel guilty about their choice *IF* it is an informed or at least somewhat reasoned choice.
Voting for McCain is right out, though.
I’ve voted for third party candidates lots of times. But not when the polls were neck and neck between the candidate who would be ok but not perfect versus the candidate who would be an utter disaster for the country and the world. There is too much at stake this time.
I was mostly reacting to polls of Clinton and Obama supporters that shows that significant numbers (like more than 50%) are planning to react to their candidate losing the nomination by staying home in the general election or voting for McCain. McCain needs to lose and lose BIG. Big enough that even the usual Republican voter fraud can’t swing the election.
In theory, I agree with rone, but in practice agree with Paul.
Sadly, I don’t know what to say to people around me who tell me “NY is safe as a Democratic state. I’m not hurting anything by sitting this one out.”
Got a good comeback for that?
Vicki: how about “Why do you hate America so much?”
You’ll remember that in 2000 I was telling New York voters that they should vote for Nader as a protest that the Democratic Party was swinging too far right. But I didn’t do that in 2004 – the stakes are too high now to risk it.
“NY is safe as a Democratic state. I’m not hurting anything by sitting this one out.â€
This sounds like a good cue for starting up the “crush them like bugs” rant to me, and I say this as someone who’s fed up enough with the Democratic Party that I’m going to do my dramatic reenactment of the state of Missouri come this election season.
Agree with Paul 100%. For Vicki: Try “It is about the Supreme Court, stupid!!”