A Wasted Vote?

But first, a brief tale of an election well past.  In 1980, before I was old enough to vote, my mother went down to the polling place on her own and came back with this tale.  Her choice was independent candidate John Anderson, a 20-year veteran of the House of Representatives from Illinois.  While standing in line, the people around her asked the usual "Who are you voting for?" question.  When she gave her answer, several people said "Oh yeah, I like him."

"So you're going to vote for him?"

"Oh my, no."

"Why not?"

"Because he's not going to win."

Because apparently, voting has nothing to do with making a crucial choice for your country, it has to do with being on The Winning Side.  But when the nation is evenly split down the middle and a clear Winning Side isn't immediately apparent, then what?

Twelve years ago, I voted for Ralph Nader rather than Al Gore.  (There will now be a short pause while I duck the vegetables thrown by various Democrats.)

Everyone--and I do mean everyone, including close friends whose opinions I highly respect--tell me that not only did I waste a vote, but I helped contribute to the utter hideousness of the 2000 election debacle.  I remind those people that I was living in Illinois at the time, a state that was considered safe for Al Gore, and that I was trying to accomplish two things...

First, I wanted to say to the Democrats, my usual party of choice, that they were being particularly namby-pamby that year.  They were rattled by Bill Clinton's sex scandal and impeachment, and Al Gore seemed to be so determined to appear unClintonesque that he wasn't really anything, including himself.  (I remember going to a campaign rally in Daley Plaza in 1992, with the Clintons and the Gores, and it was Al Gore who gave the best speech that day.  He had it in him to be great, he always did; but when the time came, he got cautious. Fatally cautious, I would say.)  As a lifelong Democrat, I wanted to say to the party that my vote was not guaranteed, and that if they didn't earn it they weren't gonna get it.  But also...

Second.  There's no question that we are not well-served by this endless bouncing between two parties, both of which are owned by corporate interests.  (Look, it's my blog.  You're going to have accept as true my strong assertion that we are living in an oligarchy, otherwise this thing will go on for forever.)  So I wanted to support a credible third party, the Greens were pretty well aligned with the things I wished the Democrats were talking about, and if they could reach at least 5% nationally, they would not only qualify for federal funding in the next election cycle but they would go a long way toward proving their viability as a party/movement.

So I voted Nader.  Gore won Illinois as expected, Nader failed to reach 5% for the Greens, and Florida happened.  But I continue to maintain that if Gore had just been more Gore-like, had taken a stronger stand on, well, anydamnthing, he would have won.  It wasn't Nader's fault, it was Gore's.

Now, a brief detour.  For several years, during each presidential election cycle I have sought out various newspaper/magazine lists of the candidates' stands on various issues and put together a little scorecard for each candidate.  It was laborious and imperfect, and I could really only do it for the two major guys of each party.

But three cheers for the internet--now there's isidewith.com, which automates that process and includes all the candidates.  You answer a short series of questions (make sure to check out the alternative positions offered for each question) and it gives you a handy little summary of who you side with, in order from most to least.  I've taken the test twice, and the first time got a surprising score of 94% for Barack Obama.  (Surprising because I'm one of those who have been disappointed with him, and I did not expect that number to be so high.)  But I just took it again, being a little extra-thorough in my answers, and got a different result that was perhaps even more surprising...

The Green Party candidate again.  She just barely ekes out Obama in my results, but my worries about two-party oligarchy have only grown (massively) since the 2000 election.  Plus, here's one of those moments when I have to decide whether or not I'm a hypocrite.  Did I take this test in order to justify making the easy, popular choice?  Did I just want to be on The Winning Side?  (Well, maybe....)  Or did I take the test for a reason, and was I willing to run with the results?

I haven't quite decided.  But I will note this--I live in California now, which is a pretty safe state for Obama.  In whom I have been disappointed.  It's feeling a little like 2000 again, hopefully in a good way and not in a Supreme Court intervention sorta way.  Hmmmm.

But just imagine this for a moment: if every voter in America could reliably determine which candidate they really identify with the most strongly; and if every voter then actually voted that way.  Then we might, emphasis on the word "might," end up with something like a democracy again.

Before I go, here's a link to Dr. Stein's website, and here's one to an excellent Bill Moyers interview with the Green candidates from just the other night.