10.15.2008

Let’s Make A Deal

So as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not exactly thrilled about either of our major presidential candidates.

Unfortunately, the political system in the United States is strictly limited to two parties, and anyone not belonging to one of those two parties, no matter how qualified or popular they may be, has no legitimate chance of being elected.

Then I came across VotePact.org, which I thought was pretty neat.

The basic premise of Vote Pact is that a significant portion of Americans don’t really identify closely with either of the two major parties (and specifically with those parties’ candidates in this particular election), but they vote for them anyway because they fear that voting for a third party candidate just helps the party that they dislike the most.

Vote Pact’s solution:

Disenchanted Republicans should pair up with disenchanted Democrats and both vote for third party or independent candidates they more genuinely want. This way they siphon off votes by twos from each of the establishment parties. This liberates the voters to vote their actual preference from among those on the ballot, rather than to just pick the “least bad” of the two majors. They could each vote for different candidates, or they could vote for the same candidate. If the later, it could offer an enterprising candidate a path to actual electoral success.
On the website, there’s a chart to show how, statistically, this is somewhat feasible.

Of course, it’s not like all the people who don’t really like Obama or McCain are a politically uniform group, so it’s highly unlikely that they could ever unite behind a third party candidate.

But boy, I think it’d be cool if they did.

10 comments:

Will 10/15/08, 11:12 PM  

I'll do it if you do it ;)

Anonymous 10/16/08, 12:05 AM  

Saw your blog the other day. Hope things are going well!

I hear you w/ the not liking either candidate very much. Have you tried this:
http://www.electoralcompass.com/page/0/thema+s/

Anonymous 10/16/08, 12:11 AM  

Awesome! So I can finally vote for Ross Perot?

Luke Dockery 10/16/08, 8:49 AM  

Will,

Find us a decent candidate and I'll do it. He has to be opposed to abortion though, or I'm out.

Luke Dockery 10/16/08, 8:51 AM  

Lori,

Hey, it's great to hear from you.

I did go to the electoral compass page and I was closer to McCain than Obama (which didn't surprise me).

But I still think McCain is big jerk, and I don't think I can vote for him.

Luke Dockery 10/16/08, 8:53 AM  

Towell,

Yes, by all means. Texans unite and all that.

Perot did actually have one of the more successful third party campaigns back in '92. I think he probably swayed the election in Clinton's favor.

MrsDockery 10/16/08, 2:29 PM  

If you'll remember, Will is the same guy who voted Libertarian at the last presidential election.

Luke Dockery 10/17/08, 11:33 AM  

Mrs. D,

I do remember, and I'm sure he's eager at the chance to do so again.

I think Libertarians are somewhat crazy, but I'd certainly consider voting for one who opposes Roe v. Wade.

Will 10/20/08, 10:13 PM  

How about Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate?

http://www.baldwin08.com/

Luke Dockery 10/21/08, 10:42 AM  

Will,

On first glance, he doesn’t seem too crazy, although he considers Abraham Lincoln to be one of the worst presidents we've ever had.

I’ll read about him some more, but on the surface, I’ll give you a “Sounds good.”

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