Who do you plan to vote for?
 

Let's say the election was today. Who would you vote for? Some of you have already said, but many haven't.

You can vote anonymously in the poll without leaving a comment if you want.

Oh, and if you aren't eligible to vote in a US election, please don't use the poll, but feel free to post any comments.

Like i've said before. Bush isn't America's best choice, but he is the best choice of the available options.

I still need to do some more research. It's kinda difficult to get past all the hype and soundbytes. I want to see what anyone in the race other than Bush or Kerry are saying.

This year's election really helps me to identify with Aron Ralston, the dude who had to amputate his own arm to save his life. I feel like I can either hack my arm off with a pocket knife and cut my losses (Kerry), or lay on the canyon floor in misery and despair until I eventually die of exposure (Bush). Sure, nobody actually wants to amputate their own arm, but when you look at the only viable alternative, it suddenly doesn't look so bad...

So you advocate the destruction of free trade? If using emotions, then one will conclude that George Jr is a free trader. Facts say completely different. The US is having record numbers of decisions imposed against it by the WTO. The tarriffs to protect anti-American steel companies (USX, Bethlehem Steel, etc) was an outright violation of free trade; not based upon economic data. That attempt to get steel votes also undermined one of America's most productive industries - the America steel reprocessing industry - resulting in a loss estimated at between 20,000 and 40,000 American jobs.

Bush has a long list of facts against him. Free trade is but one example. George Jr opposes free trade. Having completely undermined the WTO conference in Mexico resulting in most nations walking out days early. Many actually 'feel' George Jr advocated free trade. The facts repeatedly say different.

When you look George Jr, do you see his propaganda as lookout123 apparently does? Or do you be blunt and politically incorrect as I am - to learn the real facts. Facts-Do you believe in world free trade? Are you employed by a steel reprocessing company (ie machine shop)? Then you must hate George Jr. This is not widely known because too many naively think George Jr is a free trader. Even the advantages of NAFTA has been stifled by George Jr, in part, because his 'so called' good friend and president in Mexico opposed the war in Iraq.

The poll should have Badnarik in it. Michael Badnarik is by far the best choice of every candidate running.

Kerry's campaign managers have decided to not even spend the money on TV advertising in Colorado. This tells me that at least SOMEONE in his group has some common sense. Colorado is hardly a swing state and what few votes it has in the electoral college inevitably go to the republicans in presidential elections. I will vote in the upcoming election because I want to support my local democratic state representative who is facing a major battle with a wealthy republican candidate. I wouldn't vote for Bush in a million years, and I'm unhappy with Kerry. If I thought it mattered, I WOULD vote for Kerrry, however. Since it doesn't, I'll show my displeasure by writing in the name of someone on my presidential ballot - maybe Bill, The Cat of Bloom County fame.

Maybe you don't think it will count but maybe if enough elections have disparity between the popular vote and the electoral college, something will get done about it. :yelsick:

Actually the Economist has been doing a study of swing states, one by one, for months now. Colorado was listed as a swing state.

Pennsylvannia is listed as about as close as one can get. PA still uses punch hole ballots.

It's not over 'til the fat lady sings...
 

The election is still 45+ days, 2 debates, and 400,000,000 tons of mudslinging away but the electoral count as of today is

Bush: 311
Kerry: 223

i guess bringing the Clinton team on didn't inspire that many people. i guess we'll just have to wait and see.

link

I'm glad to hear that Colorado is coming up in the world. I suppose this means that I'll have to follow the state polls and see if there's a snowball's chance in hell that the Republican stranglehold on the state is weakening. I am not overly optimistic about this, nor about the possibility of electoral college reform. The idea has been bandied about as long as I've been old enough to vote (i.e. a LONG time!) with no change thus far.

Thursday September 16, 2004--The Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll shows President George W. Bush with 49% of the vote and Senator John Kerry with 45%. The Tracking Poll is updated daily by noon Eastern. I also discovered that the most recent polls show Colorado split at 47% Kerry, 47% Bush. Hmmmm... this just might get interesting. I may not write in Bill the Cat after all.

I'm still voting for Kerry, although I'm disappointed with how he's run his campaign. I have the sick feeling already that George W. is going to win, but I am hoping that sick feeling will go away soon.

That's where I stand now. If Kerry were to step up on the war issues I could be convinced but as long as he maintains a traditional Dem pessimism campaign... Man I want Bush out.

I'd like to see the candidates use these two debates to talk about issues that are important to ME. Up to now, neither Bush nor Kerry have really gone into depth about the issues that I really care about. I really don't care what kind of war record someone has. Military experience != ability to run a country. It would if the military controlled everything in the country but it doesn't. We (in theory) control the military. So Kerry has three Purple Hearts; kudos, but what does that have anything to do with how Kerry could, for example, fix the broken wagon that is healthcare here at home? And how does Bush's alleged National Guard experience make him someone who has a good idea how to manage the SS balloon that is very close to running out of air? My future as I see it has much less to do with what's going on on the other side of the world and much more to do with what's going on here in my backyard (especially since DC itself's a hefting stone's throw away from me). Much of the discussion has been about ultimately irrelevant points in Kerry's and Bush's personal histories and about bad-mouthing and belittling the other party and it's manner of thinking. Both sides need to come off that and talk about real issues.

If I vote for Dubya, I'm voting to keep things the way they are now, and to continue down the same path.

If I vote for Kerry, I'm voting to get rid of Dubya, Cheney, Ashcroft, both Powells, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, a variety of likely judicial appointments, the preemptive-war Bush Doctrine, as much of the Patriot Act as possible, and the current national strategies having to do with Iraq, terrorism in general, the economy, public schools, civil liberties and taxation.

Kerry it is. If he gets rid of all of the above, he could spend four years being fed grapes by a legion of Lewinskys and I wouldn't mind.

Unfortunately, the disparity will always have just benefitted the ones in power, who will be less than enthusiastic about change.

Has anyone ever stopped to consider what might happen if Bush gets re-elected? While he is certainly holding back at the moment on many decisions concerning our government, if he comes in for a 2nd term he'll have nothing to lose. And you thought that Patriot Act parts I and II were bad?

Truthfully, I really, strongly dislike Kerry. But there is no way I could conciously vote for a man who seems to have it in his head that American citizens need to have their rights taken away in order to lead a safe life. Bush's plans for our country are currently being held in check by the need to stay popular with as many people as possible in order to get elected a second time. After that, god only knows what he might do.

Patriot Act III?
Iran/Syria?
Military Draft?

Editorial on the legitimacy of polling

I was talking with my friend who cooked up a theory:

*shrug*. Could very well have a point.

Exactly. What is it about personal freedom, free trade, and military discretion that you people don't like?

Let's not even go there, O.K.? :eyebrow:

So in this analogy, is voting for Nader or Badnarik the equivalent of shooting off a flare? There's nobody within a hundred miles to see it, so it's a futile effort.

Voting for Nader is like shooting off a flare nobody can see. Voting for Bednarik is like yelling furiously at the rock.

Voting for Bednarik is to take the role of the tree falling in the forest with no one to hear. ;)

Voting for Badnarik is like slapping the face of those in the major parties and saying you want change instead of getting more of the same. Voting for a Republican or a Democrat is like saying "I love how you've wrecked the free country we once had. By all means do more of the same."

The events that occurred at this year's RNC while Bush was in town are probably the best sneak preview of Bush's second term that we'll get. The story is long, but sobering... and definitely worth the read. Also here.

It's clear that Bush's administration treats the Constitutional rights (and privacy) of Americans to be priviledges, which are subject to dismissal without just cause, or notice. This is evidenced by the Patriot Act, Free Speech zones, the Matrix, his ban on photographing the coffins of returning dead soldiers, et cetera ad absurdum. This is to say nothing of his lies, war-mongering, blatant manipulation of the press (including scripted questions), prematurely abandoning the search for bin Laden, and countless other reasons to get this man and his administration out of power.

I really wonder how far he has to go before his supporters start seeing what an unspeakably poor president he is. How many innocent bodies have to pile up? How many rights tdo we have to surrender in the name of safety?

I really wonder how far he has to go before his supporters start seeing what an unspeakably poor president he is.

The fun part of the RNC speeches: Bush went right back to talking about invading Iraq as if it were a great blow to terrorism, he spoke as if he's made the United States safer since 9/11, and he declared that they were going to stop the evil doing of the democrats as if they controlled both the House and the Senate. And everyone watching ate every bit of it up.

It is as if the past years have been erased, and neither party has taken notice. No WMD? That wasn't the real reason we went. Haven't caught Bin Laden? We don't care to find him at this time. Out of control government spending? That's something only thedemocrats would do! Ask these questions to anyone and they'll dismiss them as old issues, so it really doesn't seem to matter how poor a job Bush does because it has proven so easy to distract the American public. We will never see anyone punished for invading a sovereign nation, no one will ever be held accountable for faulty intelligence reports, and the rights of the people will never be protected for what they're truly worth. In the middle of everything that has happened to us during this term, a smiling George W and John Kerry fight out issues over a battle that took place decades ago, while a war that continues today goes largely unquestioned.

Remember 9/11! ...but ensure that you forget every other day since then.

You're right. I guess we should all just mindlessly follow the crowd. If you believe in the platforms of the Republican or Democatic Parties, then by all means vote for one of the two. However, don't harass someone else for voting for what they believe in. I'll be able to sleep easier knowing I voted for what I believed in rather than settled for something I didn't.

Here's what I believe... I believe that any vote which is not for Kerry is just as good as a vote for Bush. The sad fact is that a vote for anyone aside from the top two candidates is just noise; So if I don't vote for Kerry, then I am failing to contribute to removing Bush from office. I don't like it, but that's the way it is.

But that's just me.

I voted for Marrou, Paul, and Browne... slept easy at the time but today I wish I had those back. I was wrong, and have moved on to where I am making a better choice now.

No. You believed you made the right choice then and you believe you're going to make the right choice now.

I want for the RNC to see Bush losing PA by the couple percentage points picked up by someone who stands for values that most Republicans believe in. Sure its a fantasy but if it looks like Kerry will have a close win in PA I'm clicking The Lib lever. There is no way I want Kerry to think he has my support unless he gets real on the war. Bottom line voting is an empty activity. The way you effect our government is through professional involvement and bribery er fundraising. Voting is just a silly activity that creates the illusion of representation and makes punks like Bush think they have some moral authority.

The vast majority of non-libertarian supporters of Badnarik are Republicans who are disgusted by Bush so a vote for Badnarik is not the same as a vote for Bush. In fact a vote for Badnarik is often one less vote for Bush.

Like it or not we have more than 2 parties and caving in and voting for the lesser of two evils does not make the best choice "noise". Although it is noice. It's the loud noise of people shouting that they won't take the same old shit from government.

When you compromise with evil, only evil can win. If you vote for the candidate you hate the least instead of the candidate you like the most, your vote is wasted and you've lost a chance to make things better. Voting isn't a horse race. You don't bet your vote on who you think will win. You vote for who you think will be best for the country. Anything else is a wasted vote.

Here's a quote from Michael Badnarik at this years Libertarian convention.

"If you were in prison and you had a 50% choice of lethal injection, a 45% chance of going to the electric chair and only a 5% chance of escape, are you likely to vote for lethal injection because that is your most likely outcome? If you continue to vote for the Democrats or the Republicans, you are committing political suicide."

--Michael Badnarik



Really? And what's that choice? If it's Kerry or Bush it's not a better choice. If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you're still voting for evil.

I agree with your summation of the voting process in some ways. The sad thing is that "punks" like Bush or Kerry or ANY elected representative on the national level don't for a moment believe they derive any moral authority from the "will of the people" - they just want everyone else to buy into this fairy tale or keep quiet about it if they don't. The American people continue to refuse to acknowledge the fact that the emperor wears no clothes, and that's fine by the emperor.

I DO feel that my vote still makes some difference on the state and, especially, the local level. I think we all need to pay more attention to the grass roots if we want to even try to save this great experiment we call American democracy.

I don't like Kerry, but I loathe and hate Bush. The election is close enough in my state, anyway, that Kerry WILL get my vote. I would restate Radar's analogy more like this: I have a 49% sure chance of dying, a 47% chance it could go either way, and, given the dynamics of the selection process, I can in effect choose the first option by selecting something that has a 100% certainty of not happening, as noble (or not) as that third choice may be.

Welcome to the real world. George W. Bush has SHOWN the American people that he is amoral, playing the game for the ends of his handlers and himself with no regard for the people of this country and its democratic ideals. Jefferson would weep to see what this most recent George has wrought, so counter to what the first man by that name in office FOUGHT for.

A vote for a third party candidate in such a close election as this is a vote AGAINST whatever ideals you may have. If you feel strongly about the lack of choice offered to the American voter, become an activist in the off election years. Support candidates at the local level who stand for what you believe in. Speak out against the electoral college process and the way a place in office is now bought and sold. For God's sake, vote to give this country at least an outside chance and not the certainty of the Bush administration's continued atrocities against the Republic we all hold so dear.

When I weighed the last Presidential election, I thought Bush was the lesser of two evils. I'm really glad I voted for Browne.

Well, that may be true in many cases, but it isn't true in my particular case, since my vote wouldn't have gone to Bush anyway.

Here's how I look at it... in America's current political climate, a Libertarian candidiate cannot win by my reckoning. With luck that won't always be true, but it is the sad reality right now. Consequently, to cast a vote for a Libertarian candidate effectively nullifies that vote. With that in mind, consider this... what if Bush were to win by a margin smaller than the number of voters who vote Libertarian? In that situation, if all those Libertarian votes had been cast for Kerry instead, Bush would have lost.

There is too much riding on it this year to vote for someone who can't win... the highest priority for me is to get Bush out, even if it means a bland, mediocre guy like Kerry is in the White House for awhile.

This discussion is all irrelevant anyway, since the electoral college makes the American voter pretty much impotent in such matters.

i was scanning through old threads and came across a good one that i think is appropriate here. it is interesting to see the evolution in some cellarites political opinions over the last 18 months or so. radar's prediction about the D's putting a monkey up against Bush because there is no chance of Bush getting re-elected is pretty funny.

flashback

That was fun to reread. Kutz said;
:hafucking

What backwoods district are you voting in? We've had either the old style lever voting machines or the new electronic ones since the 80s.

Oh, there were a few elections I did use a punch-ballot in, but that was when I was in college, 81-83 (I switched my registration to my college address). My home district used machines.

Speaking of electronic voting: I find it cute that you all argue like your vote is going to count. :)

Yeah, I know. I feel like a kid whistling in the dark to keep my spirits up. I'd like to believe that I live in a Democracy, but I really don't. We should just make Bush King George IV or V and be done with it. :greenface

well.. geez, although I live in Kansas and might as well fire the aforementioned flare up my ass whilst yelling at a rock and cutting my arm off... just take a little look at the link below.

my main disagreements with bush aside from the war/terrorism/the economy/lies/distrust/patriot act etc. is his perversion of sience to promote his religous views. have any of you read the waxman report (one of the earlier ones :))?

a friend of mine works in the local school system, and he was shocked and somewhat horrified to discover the abstinance was the leading advice in the newer textbooks.. yeah sure it'll cut down on 'unwanted' children and disease.. but c'mon let's get real.. kids are GOING to have sex... they ought to have the knowledge/resources to make real choices in that areana (yeah I know this is opening a whole 'nother can of worms.. sorry)

oh here's the link
http://www.thousandreasons.org/listB.html

AMEN, Brother. The Libertarians are the only party with their collective heads screwed on.

Unfortunately, I have to vote for Kerry. I'd much sooner, in a perfect world, vote for Badnarik (I am a card-carrying Libertarian), Nader, or even Dennis "The Mad Elf" Kucinich, but being in a swing state and knowing that we can't afford four more years of neo-conservatism, I have to vote for a man who has an honest-to-god shot at winning. Plus, I don't really dislike Kerry...he's a viable alternative (if not the best)

On Slashdot: Libertarian Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik Answers 15 user-submitted questions. Interesting history and opinions.

I'm voting for Kerry, both because of what he wants to do and what the other guy wants to do, but I'm not really getting as invested into the Democratic Party as a few friends of mine are. From what I've read of history and what I'm seeing now, I firmly believe that we're going to see a politico-ideological schism in this country that we haven't seen since the Republicans first came on the scene a century and a half ago.

Basically, it seems to me like the established parties are shooting themselves in the foot going so after the youth vote like they are this year. Every new young voter I've spoken to that just got a crash education in current politics says something to the effect that "They're not really all that different, you know?" This just says to me that we now have a bloc of voters, disaffected with the current political system, ready and willing to join a new home if the opportunity presents itself.

My opinion as to how it's going to go down? The neocons aren't going to go away. So to combat it, somebody at the DNC right now is proposing giving the Dixiecrats (Miller, et al) some more face time in order to "advance the greater agenda" of Democratic beliefs or some other excuse like that. Sooner or later they're going to try it out, and when that happens, you'll see the young, the established Left, and other dissenters to the policy bolt for another group.

Of course, everything would be essentially resolved if we went to a proportional representation system, rather than winner-take-all, but I know well enough that I'll never live to see that.

Here's an excerpt from the slashdot website questions asked of Badnarik posted by hot_pastrami.

His argument there is based on his opinion that Bush and Kerry are essentially equal, which I disagree with completely. If I agreed with the sentiment that they are fundamentally the same, I'd agree with his point that a Libertarian vote was not a throw-away vote. But since I don't, then I don't (respectively). That is one of the few points I disagree with him on... by and large, my personal beliefs parallel those he describes.

I don't think he's saying they're equal although their positions are nearly identical. He's saying that no matter which of the two you find to be more evil, both of them are evil and support evil things.

I personally find George W. Bush not only to be the greater of the two evils in the major parties, but I think he's the single worst president in American history and is in the same ilk as Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, etc.

Does that mean I should vote for someone else who is evil, but just less evil? Not at all. Any vote for someone who isn't the person who you believe is genuinely the very best candidate (regardless of their chances of winning) is a wasted vote.

ONLY Badnarik says he would pull completely out of Iraq immediately, and stop the American hegemony and imperialistic foreign policy that brought us there in the first place and created the hatred that spawned 9/11.

What if you think that ALL parties have positions you consider evil? I want there to be Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Greens (to name the top 4) all represented, and empowered, in government - to run interference on each other. At the moment, the most important step is to remove the Republican stranglehold, which Badnarik has no chance of doing.

The Libertarian Party as a whole has a great chance of doing it and is the only party that will make government smaller, and freedom larger.

Well, it looks like Kerry's talk show appearances are helping him to look human in flyover country.
according to the polls, Bush lost 99 electoral votes since yesterday.

Electoral count

Imagine you have a raffle ticket in your hand, and you can drop it into one of three boxes.... the first gives you a chance to win $100,000, but the odds of winning are one in a billion (Badnarik). The second box offers $10,000 and a wedgie, with a 50% chance of winning (Kerry). The third will net you a buck fifty and an anvil dropped on your nuts, also with a 50% chance of winning (Bush).

I know which box I'm putting my ticket into.

I don't think Kerry is "evil" anyway... the "lesser of two evils" is just a figure of speech. Bush is evil; Kerry is okay, but not ideal. Badnarik is forward-thinking and intelligent, but impossible to elect presently, and too radical for today's society.

The priority is to remove Bush, and a vote for Kerry goes the furthest in accomplishing that goal.

And then there is Michael Moore's ringing endorsement of John Kerry:

To be fair, Moore still hates Bush more than he hates Kerry and his letter can be found here

A couple hundred thousand people vote for the L candidate every election.

This "evil" is still around and in power after 32 years of the LP's existence.

How many decades ya gonna give it?

But they're not gonna win the Presidency. Start smaller. Of course, the Libertarians should still run for President, to stay in the public eye, but it really should just be PR for local and statewide candidates at this point.

It's all in the lean of the latest polls, but it is fun watching those sites swing to and fro. Here are two more.

I know which box I'm putting my ticket into also. But you have the wrong prizes setup.

Here's what you're really voting for.

Box #1 - Badnarik: 5% chance at freedom, prosperity, security, and liberty for you and your children

Box #2 - Kerry: 45% chance of being beaten severely and gang raped by thugs followed by a lethal injection.

Box #3 - Bush: 50% chance of your mother being anally raped in front of you, being raped by AIDS infested prison inmates, being tortured to death, being revived, and then getting the electric chair.

I'm voting for freedom, anything else is insane.

Well it took 200+ years for evil to screw things up this bad, I think 32 years is just the start. Also there are more than 600 elected libertarians right now and that number is growing.

I'd be willing to bet we'll either have a libertarian controlled congress and the freedoms that go along with it before I die, or we'll have complete totalitarianism and America will no longer have sovereignty because we'll be part of a larger government.

If you vote for anyone other than a Libertarian, you're voting to have the latter of those.

We are running for presidency and until this year we'd been on the ballot in all 50 states and D.C. but this year the exclusionary tactics of the Republicans and Democrats have kept us off in New Hampshire (supposedly a state that welcomes liberty) and Oklahoma which we're still in court over. We're still on in more states than anyone else including Nader.

Libertarians run at all levels of government and should continue to do so to stay in the public eye. We're not going anywhere.

Here's another one.

That is necessary but not sufficent.

Getting your name on the ballot is one of the most important things, if not THE most important thing. Being treated equally under the law and eliminating the blatantly exclusionary tactics of the major parties is another huge obstacle. And getting people to realize the truth about the major parties being nearly identical and knowing all they have to do to get real, positive, and lasting change is vote for libertarians.