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Vote 3rd party or you're an idiot!Chris Matthews can suck it. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter tom22406
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cstu
Footballguy
The choices are what they are - but if you vote 3rd party and put another GWB (or worse as Trump appears to be) then that's something you'll have to live with.The Commish said:Depending on which election you're talking about your options (if you believe the two parties are the be all / end all) were GWB, Kerry, or Gore. Those choices aren't on anyone but those voting in the GOP and Dem primaries
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
I never buy this reasoning. So many directions we could point the finger. I will never vote for someone I don't believe in just to vote against the greater of two evils. To me that is wasting my vote. If it's Bernie, he will get my vote, if it's Trump/Clinton, I will be going 3rd party as I do most of the time.cstu said:
Galileo
Footballguy
3rd party could get you Mitt Romney as president...at least that's the logic of this blog: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-nicholas-phillips/doomsday-savior-how-paul-ryan_b_9474788.html
The gist of it is Trump gets GOP nomination. Establishment says no way, jumps ship and throws support behind a moderate conservative third party candidate, Mitt. They put together a Romney/Rubio or Romney/Kasich ticket. Said ticket draws enough support away from Trump and Hilary in the general election so that no candidate gets a majority of the electoral vote. Choice of the next president goes to congress where Paul Ryan orchestrates the selection of Mitt to POTUS. Trump stopped...Hillary denied.
Sounds a little far fetched, but honestly, I am not sure anything would surprise me in this election cycle.
The gist of it is Trump gets GOP nomination. Establishment says no way, jumps ship and throws support behind a moderate conservative third party candidate, Mitt. They put together a Romney/Rubio or Romney/Kasich ticket. Said ticket draws enough support away from Trump and Hilary in the general election so that no candidate gets a majority of the electoral vote. Choice of the next president goes to congress where Paul Ryan orchestrates the selection of Mitt to POTUS. Trump stopped...Hillary denied.
Sounds a little far fetched, but honestly, I am not sure anything would surprise me in this election cycle.
cstu
Footballguy
There's no reasoning to get - people in Florida who threw their vote away on Nader when they would have otherwise voted for Gore gave the election to Bush.
cstu
Footballguy
Very far-fetched considering Romney only got 60 million votes with all of the Republican support behind him and it's ridiculous to say he would pull away many Hillary voters.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
I still don't get this argument. Far more people stayed home than voted. Hell blame the people who actually voted for Bush. Blame Gore for being a crummy candidate or the DNC for selecting him. Heck there were other parties and candidates besides Nader why stop there.
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timschochet
Footballguy
I think someone like Romney will run, and I think it's important. But not because he'll make a big difference in November. I doubt he will. I think he or someone like him will run in order to save the honor of the Republican party.
shuke
Black Ice Skeptic
Libertarian site shows a bunch of hopefuls, a number of which look like carnies. Johnson is probably the most polished.
pinequick
Footballguy
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Steve Tasker
Footballguy
timschochet
Footballguy
Doesn't matter. They'll call it that. Or they'll call it the conservatives, or something.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
It matters.
Aside from the fact that, you know, it's actually the party, Donald will take the brand value, the donor support, and voter loyalty with him.
If you're suggesting other Republicans run to save their own souls yeah so should voters vote 3rd party to save theirs, that's what this thread is about.
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Mister CIA
Footballguy
Is blackmail not a crime anymore?
If Trump is elected President, then Hillary can contemplate her litany of political ####-ups, and her supporters can apologize to reasonable citizens for their short-sightedness.
cstu
Footballguy
Nader got 90,000 votes in an election decided by 500.
Obviously Bush voters are to blame but even worse than them are the people who aligned politically with Gore but instead voted for Nader. They should be ashamed of themselves.
pollardsvision
Footballguy
Nice. Still an opportunity to get in on the ground floor.
I do wonder how much of that $310 came from the sale of his Camaro.
The Commish
Footballguy
That's not how it works. If I vote 3rd party, my vote goes to who I voted for. This POV is one of fear that I don't subscribe to. It's as silly as if not sillier than complaining about the last play of a game "costing" a team. It ignores the 99% of the events that happened that lead up to that last play. I've done what I can to keep Hillary and/or Trump out of office by not voting for them. That's all I can do as an individual. It's logically impossible to vote against something and be responsible for that something being voted for.
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IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
I would weep tears of joy if my third party vote somehow resulted in W winning the 2016 election. That's an order of magnitude better than the two most likely options.
CletiusMaximus
Footballguy
Rove!
Footballguy
i think Al Goee may have been worse. The push to depose Saddam had its root in the Gulf War and the movement grew especially dtrong in the late 90s when the Clinton administration heavily pushed the Iraq WMD narrative, as well as having linked Saddam to Al Qaeda. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/jun/24/20040624-112921-3401r/
A
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Yeah, I am not seeing a huge difference. Gore supported regime change in Iraq. His difference was pretty nuanced. Build a coalition first and focus more on getting bin laden. Nothing Gore would have done would have prevented the financial crisis. Both disasters which occurred under Bush would have happened under Gore. Which means we would of had a very conservative President the last 8 years.
Joe Summer
Footballguy
Think about it like this: Hillary Clinton would not be on the verge of being president if Republicans hadn't voted for Ross Perot in 1992.
timschochet
Footballguy
Yes there are the historical examples of Nader and Perot. But there are also historical examples which go the other way:
1. In 1948 Henry Wallace ran as a progressive candidate, drawing left wing Democrats away from Truman, and Strom Thurmond ran as a Dixiecrat drawing southern Dems away from Truman. Yet Truman won the election.
2. In 1968 George Wallace ran on a segregationalist platform and drew southern votes awY from Nixon. Yet Nixon won the election.
With some reluctance (because as usual I see both sides) I'm forced to agree with The Commish here: vote for who you want and don't worry about it.
1. In 1948 Henry Wallace ran as a progressive candidate, drawing left wing Democrats away from Truman, and Strom Thurmond ran as a Dixiecrat drawing southern Dems away from Truman. Yet Truman won the election.
2. In 1968 George Wallace ran on a segregationalist platform and drew southern votes awY from Nixon. Yet Nixon won the election.
With some reluctance (because as usual I see both sides) I'm forced to agree with The Commish here: vote for who you want and don't worry about it.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
In 1968 Wallace was a Democrat (ie when he formed a 3rd party just for his run), he was drawing votes from Humphrey back then (though Nixon was trying to as well).
Humphrey who was also the VP of course had also survived challenges from McCarthy and RFK.
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SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
I'm normally sympathetic to the arguments in favor of third party voting, but I think they go out the window when we're dealing with someone as historically awful and dangerous as Trump. But hey, that's just my opinion. Maybe you don't think he's as dangerous and awful as I do, which I can maybe understand. Or maybe you think Clinton would be just as dangerous and awful, which I can't even fathom. In which case, sure, follow your heart.
However, if it turns out that I was right and Trump is elected and he's incredibly awful and dangerous, you can bet your ### I'm gonna hold you accountable for casting a principled vote instead of a practical one to prevent him from coming to power. Especially when you were warned about how awful and dangerous he could be, not just by some dork on the internet but by most major American newspapers, pundits, former politicians ... pretty much everyone with a deeper understanding of foreign and domestic affairs and how the federal government functions. Very few if any of those people have similar concerns about Clinton, even if they hate her guts. IMO there are times when it's good to be principled and others when it's better to be practical, and this is clearly the latter.
Or maybe if we all just close our eyes and try to keep our minds totally blank we'll get the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man instead.
However, if it turns out that I was right and Trump is elected and he's incredibly awful and dangerous, you can bet your ### I'm gonna hold you accountable for casting a principled vote instead of a practical one to prevent him from coming to power. Especially when you were warned about how awful and dangerous he could be, not just by some dork on the internet but by most major American newspapers, pundits, former politicians ... pretty much everyone with a deeper understanding of foreign and domestic affairs and how the federal government functions. Very few if any of those people have similar concerns about Clinton, even if they hate her guts. IMO there are times when it's good to be principled and others when it's better to be practical, and this is clearly the latter.
Or maybe if we all just close our eyes and try to keep our minds totally blank we'll get the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man instead.
Joe Summer
Footballguy
And Hillary could become president with less than 40% of the vote if the Republicans try to run a 3rd party candidate.
The Commish
Footballguy
"hold you accountable"? Sorry TF...if you're going to hold anyone accountable it should be the career politician who couldn't figure out how to beat Donald ####ing Trump. If you want to hold voters accountable, hold the voters accountable who pushed forth the person with a 50%+ unfavorable rating over the guy with a net positive favorability rating. Though, this notion of holding other individuals accountable is pretty silly if we think about what an individual's vote IS (means) in our process.
All we have is our vote. That's the individual's only voice in this whole thing. It's pretty ballsy to suggest we should "take one for the team" when we know for a fact few in office are doing that for us.
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
This entire post seems premised on the mistaken notion that there is a limit to how much people can be held accountable for disasters, or how many people can be held accountable. That's not the case. Of course I'd ascribe MORE blame to the people you describe.
But if you have the power to help prevent a Trump presidency and access to the overwhelming information that tells you such a thing would be a terrible idea, and you choose not to do so because your principles tell you that voting for "the lesser of two evils" is wrong? Yeah, you have to share some of the blame as to what transpires as a result of your decision. Not very much of it, of course. There are plenty of others who would bear much more responsibility. Third party voters would be way, way, way down the list. But still, not completely off the list. Holding people accountable for the likely consequences of their decisions seems totally reasonable and logical to me.
rockaction
Footballguy
rockaction
Footballguy
I think voting third party would also depend on polling and your state's position if you're going with the lesser of two evils argument. For example, I can't imagine Hillary beating Donald by anything less than fifteen percentage points in California. What's to prevent me from trying to muster up as much support as Johnson as I can, especially when I'm not even sure how much the lesser of two evils Hillary really is given her past scandal record?
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jonessed
Footballguy
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
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The Commish
Footballguy
There's a part of me that remains pessimistic that the required distinction (as you note here) will be maintained. I'll be happy to admit that I'm wrong about that. Personally, I have no problem with anyone voting their consonance in most (if not all) circumstances and I don't see why this would be a circumstance that would alter that philosophy. I don't believe in "votes against" personally simply because the way our voting system works. The individual vote is of little consequence in our system, so other than deflection purposes, third party voters are so far down the list on reasons for Trump becoming President, I don't see why they'd be on the list at all.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Correct.
If people want to suggest they are the last man voting on Earth and will decide the final elector in the final state to decide the national election, then maybe the 'OMG you're ruining the election!' becomes more relevant. Most of us live in blue states or red states anyway.
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
I thought about it a little more and I think rockaction is right. The variables differ for every voter, with state being the big one. I'd love to see a unified effort of all Americans with common sense to completely reject Trump overwhelmingly to discourage anyone from even thinking about going down the same awful path for a long time. But unless you're in a swing state it doesn't really matter, and if also rejecting Clinton/supporting third parties is something you want to do it makes complete sense. But in a swing state? That's another story. Circumstances and a screwy system have blessed you with something most of us don't have, and I would hope that you'd do the rest of us a favor and make sure that rancid pile of orange-tinted #### never sniffs political office.
Mister CIA
Footballguy
If Trump is elected President, that would mean two things.
- The Republican party failed spectacularly.
- The Democratic party failure eclipses the Republican failure.
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
There's no win to be had in allowing a bigoted snake oil salesman to win the presidency. All it would mean is that >50% of voters are bigots, easy marks, or both. If people want to reject the two dominant political parties there have been and will be plenty of other chances to do so ... including candidates who aren't, you know, actually members of one of the parties.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Pretty lame system we have when most of us going in knowing/thinking our vote doesn't mean #### because we don't live in a state "that matters".
I get your point, but still never fault people for casting an educated vote no matter who it is for. I put 10x more blame for people who don't bother to show up or can't be bothered to learn about the candidates beforehand. I will never vote for somebody just to cast a vote against somebody else.
The Commish
Footballguy
This is where our views on Trump differ I guess. I've made this observation before in one of these threads, but as someone who's basically sat on the sidelines watching the two parties
with one another not really altering the destination race to the bottom, I have been left to observe how they are operating. Honestly, it's sickening to me and for the most part people have ignored it for a long time. Make no mistake about it. IMO, both parties are on the same path, but they are on very different areas of that path. For as long as I can remember there have been GOP candidates that will pick what I call a "hot button" topic during the primary and run as far right with it as possible. Trump has taken this approach to a whole other level. He's taken as many of these "hot button" topics as he's can and dumped tons of gasoline on them. I've often wondered what it would look like if a politician did this. Now I sorta know. I don't consider Trump a politician by any stretch. Sadly, that's both a positive and a negative. The question now becomes does this send a message to the GOP? Do they finally get it? Or are they just going to stick their head in the sand, pretend Trump is the problem and move on? If I had to bet, they'll deflect to Trump. The reality, however, is that Trump is a glaring spotlight on the problem, not the problem himself.
The same question can be asked of the Dems. Are they paying attention? They still have time to change without having the party go scorched earth reset. Will they look at Bernie's success and adjust or will they just attribute it to something else and ignore the message being sent? The general public seems to be dragging our politicians along. They are getting tired of it. We expect leadership out of our elected officials but they can't seem to get out of their own way. The longer we drag them instead of them lead us, the larger the potential for these sorts of scorched earth scenarios. My
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
The GOP has to recognize some basic facts.
- There was a problem in 92 & 96 when Perot ran.
- There is a problem with the party's prioritizing the needs of its donors over the people voting for them. Largely IMO this has involved not effectively dealing with enforcing the border according to law, but it also has meant not conceding that government infrastructure and regulation has real impact. It may not create good but it can prevent harm.
- Stop investing in wars of choice, especially losing ones. Altogether since 1992 this country has flubbed the Post Cold War world. Instead of doing what got us there we changed and did something else. The results have been disastrous.
By the way the Democrats have engaged in some to much of this, particularly the Yellow Dog / Clinton wing. But they deserve their own rundown. However obviously in terms of mistakes made and lessons learned since 92 there has been overlap between the Dems and the GOP.
- There was a problem in 92 & 96 when Perot ran.
- There is a problem with the party's prioritizing the needs of its donors over the people voting for them. Largely IMO this has involved not effectively dealing with enforcing the border according to law, but it also has meant not conceding that government infrastructure and regulation has real impact. It may not create good but it can prevent harm.
- Stop investing in wars of choice, especially losing ones. Altogether since 1992 this country has flubbed the Post Cold War world. Instead of doing what got us there we changed and did something else. The results have been disastrous.
By the way the Democrats have engaged in some to much of this, particularly the Yellow Dog / Clinton wing. But they deserve their own rundown. However obviously in terms of mistakes made and lessons learned since 92 there has been overlap between the Dems and the GOP.
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