Plausible Deniability and Voting Third-Party

I have a hypothesis. I won't say it's a theory, because that will just bring up all my memories of having debates with people who say things like "it's only a theory!" and I don't have time for that here. Like I was saying...

I have a hypothesis, and that is that third-party voters are the hipsters of the political scene. I've seen this get thrown around with Ron Paul, but he's not even third-party. No, I'm talking about the candidates that are so far out of the mainstream, that the only evidence we have of their existence is the media equivalent of shoddy demo tapes: Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, Gary Johnson, etc.

I'll admit that even though I was alive during Perot's and Nader's respective heydays, I was too busy watching "Animaniacs" to care either way what they did. I knew that Clinton was president and I had some sort of opinion about Bob Dole, but I don't remember what it was other than that he was way old and Clinton wasn't. Don't ask me for details, because I don't know them.

Anyways, now we live in 2012. I'm not too up on Perot's or Nader's whereabouts these days, but I do see quite a bit about Gary Johnson around town and on campus. For instance, a week or two ago I was greeted by a large tarpaulin sign out behind the Student Union that featured nothing but Gary Johnson's name, a picture of some marijuana cigarettes, and the motto "Gary gets it" plastered across the top in large, comforting letters. Well, Gary may "get it", but I certainly didn't. Not the pot thing, but the whole "voting for someone who has a snowball in Mesa's chance at winning the election" thing.

Johnson fans are prepared for skeptics like myself. As pointed out by one of his fans on my FB friends list, "if everyone wasted their vote on him, he'd win". Well, so would Mickey Mouse. In fact, it's highly plausible that Mickey Mouse will pull more votes than plenty of these third-party candidates, if not necessarily Johnson himself. That's a rather silly argument to make about your candidate, because what it really does instead of inspiring confidence is come off with the hipster vibe I mentioned above. It feels like "well, my candidate will never win and you won't vote for him, but I will because then I can get in everyone else's face about how I voted for someone that no one had ever heard about".

This is not a hipster music debate. This is my attempt to understand how an American voter could knowingly (to use a very rough comparison) throw their ballot in the blender, all in order to stand on a soapbox come November 7th to preach to us about how "I voted for x" or "all candidates are the same except for the one I voted for". All I have to say to the first is "how'd that work out for you, to know that your ballot was essentially meaningless in the face of the rest of the popular vote, much less the electoral vote?" What I have to say to the second is "wow, you haven't been paying attention at all to anything but your nobody candidate, have you?" I really don't equivocate on this one.

I have a temporary job as an early ballot registration canvasser. I've also done some volunteering with voter registration on campus. Most of the people I've talked to are already registered, but occasionally I'll get a really unique response that just makes my mouth hang open. Something like "I don't vote", or "I'm too old for that". Well played, sir... NOT. I haven't run into any adamant third-party voters yet, but I'm pretty sure I know how the conversation would go.

Back to the pot thing. Rather than highlighting some more pressing issues on the Johnson/Libertarian platform, his reps on my campus decided to just focus our attention on one thing: smoking dope. They probably figured it would be a sure-fire hit, since my whole campus smells like pot smoke after 8:00 PM. But inquiring minds want to know: what else will he do? "Well," they said, "he won't start a war with Iran." OK, we're on the right track here, but neither will Obama. Can't we just reelect him instead of going with a Libertarian and all the other things inherent in their platform? Like that whole states' rights thing that the Tea Party gets so much traction out of flogging to death with neo-Confederate rhetoric and "land appropriation" bills in state congresses across the nation.

Look: if you want pot legalization, that's a tough call. The Obama administration doesn't plan to budge in the slightest on this one, but if you honestly think that pot legalization is the most important issue in this whole campaign, you've either not been watching the build-up to the election, or you've been lighting up too much of the sweet stuff to see the many-headed elephant in the room known as "GOP fascist theocracy rearing its ugly head if the Democratic Party doesn't win next month". You think things are bad now with government overreach? Just wait until you get guys like Reps. Hubbard and Fuqua out of Arkansas, who think that "slavery wasn't all that bad" and that citizenship in the US should include some kind of religious exclusion for Muslims. Does those sound like Constitutional principles to you? Or how about more Tea Party reps like those in North Carolina that talk tough about "small government", which really means "it's small compared to a Gatorade bottle and fits inside your uterus (but not ours, because we're men)"? Doesn't really smack of governmental non-intrusion, now does it?

We're approaching the point of this post. I promise. If you're reading this and you plan on voting third-party, I'm sorry if I roughed you up too much in the preceding paragraphs... It hurt me a whole lot more than it hurt you, and I'm being dead serious there. I don't really see many voters in your situation changing your minds on some of these issues. What I would like to see, however, is an acknowledgement of something that Democrats (and Republicans at times) have understood for some time now: compromise is essential to progress.

Just as liberalism used to mean an ideology pushing for rapid change and progress, conservatism used to mean progress as well, but it was more measured and methodical, certainly more so than the socialist movements that arose in the US around the turn of the century. This was also a time when Republicans were pioneers in resource conservation and worker protection. I'm most referring to President Roosevelt the First here, but his ideas enjoyed support then and are still inspirational now. Was he a perfect president? By all means, no. Read some of the things he had to say about the Philippines after we "liberated" them from the Spanish. Sure, they won the war with our help, but then when they asked if they could just hang onto that nice sovereignty thing they'd wanted during the revolution, we pretty much gave them a middle finger and fought the Vietnam War 60 years too early, the biggest difference being that we "won".

That being said, even Teddy wasn't perfect. The system needs balance. It needs compromise. If that means we sacrifice some of our pet legislation to the greater good, then so be it. Exercise a great deal of care, talk out your points and/or grievances, then see that going your own way isn't always the best idea. Sure, I'm tired of Democrats playing too nicely with Republicans who lie, but to conflate the distinction between the Tea Party and the moderate Republicans who still exist out there somewhere will do more harm than good. So will looking down the ballot on November 6th and saying that either "both candidates are the same" or "none of them meet all my expectations perfectly, therefore I'll give my vote to someone who will in all likelihood pull in no more than 4% of the vote if that".

You'd actually be pretty hard-pressed to find a Democrat out there who agrees unquestioningly with every single thing that President Obama has done. Heaven knows it's hard to find a Republican who honestly believes that everything Romney touches turns to gold. Even his campaign workers have to spin and twist his words to get some semblance of continuity between him and the language of his campaign platform... But you know what? That's just the nature of the beast. If you want a candidate who represents you perfectly and believes exactly the same way you do, then you should just go ahead and run now, because I promise you now that the phantom clone candidate that you're looking for simply doesn't exist. I'm serious: go run for something next election. I don't care what office you go after, but if you have some good ideas and a willingness to listen to your potential constituents, why not just go ahead and run?

In this election, however, our obligation is to vote. Not for a candidate whose total voter pull could be threatened by Mickey Mouse, but for a candidate who's been able to demonstrate progress in several areas. Even Reagan's old buddies at the Annenberg Public Policy Center concede that the Obama administration has had some rough times and frankly screwed up in certain areas, but these facts can't be denied: consumer confidence is up, unemployment is on a downward trend line from where it was a couple years ago, around 325,000 jobs have been added in this last year, etc.

Do give credit where it's deserved. Don't give it where it isn't.

Do stay informed. Don't wash your hands of this election and the discussion surrounding it, no matter how annoying or disturbing it may become.

Do vote. Don't throw away that right by either abstaining or giving your vote to a candidate who has no earthly chance of winning, especially if you're doing so for the purpose of standing on an ideological soapbox above the rest of us.

I know that post was basically telling you to vote for President Obama, but let's be real here: you really thought Romney could win this thing? And even if he could, would you really want him to?