The StarDestroyer BBS 2012 US Presidential Election Poll

[General Mung Beans]

So who are you voting for or supporting if you can't vote?

[Lord of the Abyss]

Barack Obama. Not that I really like him, but my voting choices are more about keeping the Republicans out of power as much as I can.

[Jim Raynor]

Obama. He's not perfect but he's by far the best candidate with an actual chance of winning.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Obama. I think he's done a fair to decent job with a shit sandwich. Passing grade, which is more than I can say for some. Keep 'im.

[Jim Raynor]

Is it fair to say that most of the population doesn't even know who Jill Stein or Gary Johnson even are?

[General Mung Beans]

Is it fair to say that most of the population doesn't even know who Jill Stein or Gary Johnson even are?

Yes (although they're doing rather better than most third-party candidates recently)-I included them largely because they had widespread ballot access.

[Simon_Jester]

Seriously, who are they?

(Yes, I could look it up, but maybe they should be talked about here if they're going to be listed as poll options)

[General Mung Beans]

Seriously, who are they?

(Yes, I could look it up, but maybe they should be talked about here if they're going to be listed as poll options)

Gary Johnson-Libertarian, rather more progressive than Ron Paul, former GOP governor of New Mexico
Jill Stein-Green, not much baggage as Ralph Nader

[darthdavid]

Stewart Alexander - Socialist Party USA

[Broomstick]

Barring something bizarre or catastrophic scandalous happening I'll probably be voting Obama, in no small part because I think he's preferable to Mitt Romney, the only other one on the list with a serious chance of winning. Romney means turning back the clock to Bush II. I think that would be disastrous not only for the US but possibly hazardous to other nations as well.

[Esquire]

What Broomstick said, more or less. I'd add that while Romney himself appears to be a decent enough fellow, the people who'd come in with him aren't.

[Gandalf]

Jill Stein.

I don't like voting "lesser of available evils."

[Grumman]

Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, for much the same reason.

[weemadando]

Jill Stein.

I don't like voting "lesser of available evils."

^this^

I remember doing a "who would you vote for?" quiz for this election and I came up at a ~90% match with Jill Stein who I hadn't heard of.

A bit more reading done and, well, why WOULDN'T a sane person vote for her?

[Agent Sorchus]

Hey Ando where did you go to read about her?

And another Green or Other voter here. I'd vote for Obama only if my state was a good battleground, but I much prefer to vote for those who actually have the same views as me.

[Guardsman Bass]

Obama. I don't mind voting for the "lesser of two evils", since I voted for Obama in 2008 for that reason (more specifically, I voted for him because I thought he would be a signature on health care reform as well as something other than an idiot on foreign policy).

[weemadando]

Hey Ando where did you go to read about her?

And another Green or Other voter here. I'd vote for Obama only if my state was a good battleground, but I much prefer to vote for those who actually have the same views as me.

Have a read of "The Green New Deal" statement. Idealistic as hell, but at least it's a platform that has a view to the future.

[eion]

why WOULDN'T a sane person vote for her?

Because a sane person knows the electorate is mostly made up of irrational, if not insane, people.

Obama. I would love to be able to vote in a system that doesn't ensure two party domination, but I don't. I have to vote strategically.

He isn't perfect, he's far too conservative for my taste, but he's far better than the likely alternative, who would just be a rubberstamp for the wackjobs and the corporations.

[Grumman]

Because a sane person knows the electorate is mostly made up of irrational, if not insane, people.

Riiight. It's all the other people voting for Obama who are irrational and insane. But not you, you're the model of sanity for voting for Obama.

Obama. I would love to be able to vote in a system that doesn't ensure two party domination, but I don't. I have to vote strategically.

What is your strategy, precisely? Achieve absolutely nothing except in the one-in-a-million chance that your one vote will be the difference between an Obama and a Romney administration next year?

[eion]

No, I'm saying there are lots of idiots who will vote for Romney because he's not Obama, and we need all the sane people we can get to vote for Obama to prevent that (And to bring along a fair number of the insane people too). When people believe things aren't going as well as they could be, they vote change. It doesn't matter if its change for the better, they just vote change. Voters are by and large ill-informed, reactionary, emotional idiots, more akin to sheep than citizens. I'm the model of cynicism for voting for Obama.

My strategy is to get as many of my on-the-fence friends to realize Obama is a better choice than Romney, try to inform my friends who feel Romney is the better pick of his many bad qualities as a person and a candidate, to continue to volunteer for the Obama campaign to ensure good voter turnout (something that historically benefits Democrats) in my very purple state where EVERY vote will count, and dissuade as many people as possible from making an idealistic vote for a candidate with no realistic chance of winning. It would be great if the American voting system was functional and we could vote for the person who best shared our values. But the system is inherently broken and forces both major parties (and in our system there can only be two major parties) into a fight for the middle. We need election reform to do away with first past the post, districting in the hands of the winners, and elections being about money not ideas, but I sorely doubt any of that will happen under either administration.

But Obama is still a better choice than Romney for oh so many reasons I hope I don’t have to go into.

[Broken]

Let us be realistic here; what are the odds of someone besides a major party nominee winning the presidential election this cycle? Pretty damn low I'd say. As someone who lives in a battleground state, I could vote for pure ideals or for strategic reasons. I will vote for Obama because he has a shot at actually winning, even if he is far from perfect. In addition to all the usual reasons to vote for Obama over Romney, I have to place the one that scares the crap out of me; imagine a Supreme Court with a few more Republican choices on it. If that possibility doesn't keep you up at night after thinking about, by all means vote for your ideals. But I don't want another Florida recount nightmare.

[JME2]

Obama. He's not perfect but he's by far the best candidate with an actual chance of winning.

Likewise.

[Formless]

No, I'm saying there are lots of idiots who will vote for Romney because he's not Obama, and we need all the sane people we can get to vote for Obama to prevent that (And to bring along a fair number of the insane people too). When people believe things aren't going as well as they could be, they vote change. It doesn't matter if its change for the better, they just vote change. Voters are by and large ill-informed, reactionary, emotional idiots, more akin to sheep than citizens. I'm the model of cynicism for voting for Obama.

Jill Stein isn't Romney either, you idiot. You not only completely missed Grumman's point, you just announced Obama to be the best candidate by fiat offhandedly, as if there were no question in your mind that he is the only sane choice.

Every time you use "chance of victory" as an argument for voting for a candidate, you are quite literally destroying whatever is left of the democratic process in America. If you only care about odds of someone getting office, there is a goverment type for you. Its called a dictatorship. After all, if there is only one party whose candidate you can vote for, you are always going to be voting for the lesser of two evils, right? But then, just ask those who lived in the former USSR how they liked the single party system.

If we're going to consider those to be rigged elections, why do we consider votes made for the candidate most likely to not lose to be made in good faith? Does America really love a winner so much that what is best for the country really does play second fiddle to that? I really hope its just a matter that other parties have just been marginalized that much, but some of you should really know better. Certainly if you are posting/voting in a thread where other candidates have already been brought up (that aren't Ron Paul).

Nor is appealing to fear a good reason. Seriously? These threads consistently remind me of one phenomenon: Attack Ads. Because that's what a lot of these posts feel like-- attack ads in adbot form. Except that they aren't being posted by adbots (at least, I hope not). They are being posted by people who are in theory going to be in a voting booth in the fall. Is there really so few virtues of your preferred candidate that all you can do is say "well, at least he's not that Republican!"? If so, I propose he is no more worth voting for than the person you loathe. "The lesser of two evils" is a really, really, impossibly low standard to go by, especially when there are more than two candidates. Again, Jill Stein isn't Romney either, but no one even cares to talk about her politics. Or any other candidate's politics, except their enemies politics. Ron Paul fans notwithstanding, of course, but I will give them this much-- at least they try to find reasons to vote for him besides what he is not. Its like why I don't call myself an atheist-- what I am not is objectively less important than what I am.

I'm voting for Jill Stein, and I don't give a damn if you consider me evil for it. My vote has the exact same interests in mind as your own, the primary difference is that *I* am not a fucking Borg Drone like you are. And if Jill Stein doesn't win, I just deal with the fact that the country is going progressively more and more senile with every election cycle. And yeah, he's probably better than Romney. But no matter what excuse you make for him, like that he's up against a Republican party that hates his guts and a congressional branch that at best can pass a healthcare bill after its been bogged down in 99 pages of bullshit, it still comes down to the same problem: Obama isn't good enough, and the Executive Branch was never intended to be the be all and end all of American politics anyway. The Republican party clearly understands the second lesson, at any rate, hence that excuse for Obama's track record. Its just an excuse, not a justification.

It would be great if the American voting system was functional and we could vote for the person who best shared our values.

You only have yourself to blame for that. Citizenship, what is that?





****




In fact, you know what? This argument pisses me off so much, here's what I am going to do. Make a thread for discussing Jill Stein, and only for discussing Jill Stein. Because that seems like the only way to get away from this kind of red herring for even ten minutes. It does at least seem like it has worked for Ron Paul in the past, even if the consensus was that he sucks donkey balls. I'll be back with that shortly.


Edit: accidental strawman in the first paragraph. Re-read the quoted post, and removed it. Also, some minor errors here and there.

[Channel72]

My vote is literally worthless, since I live in a very blue state that's going to go for Obama no matter what. That said, if I lived in a swing state, I'd vote Obama for the reasons outlined by eion.

[Formless]

TL;DR-- you don't get to criticize other voters for being mindless and destroying the system with their mindlessness while simultaneously claiming that it justifies being equally mindless in how you cast your own vote. At best that makes you a hypocrite. At worst, that's a self perpetuating argument and phenomenon that destroys democracy one voter at at time. Also, who a candidate is not should not be more important than who they are, because "lesser of two evils" is a very low standard (in fact, its a standard that can be as arbitrarily low as you want, and its still every bit as logically correct). Therefore, I am voting for Jill Stein, and I have no regrets and give no fucks if people think I am being idealistic. Democracy is supposed to unify idealism and pragmatism, and its only because people fail to understand this that we get these arguments and failure elections.