2nd Presidential Debate thread: Shut the fuck up about 3rd party voters

[JohnE]

*Points up* What he said.

I'd love to have voting for a third party be a viable option, but it just isn't in the current system. So until the system changes, we're stuck voting for the lesser of two evils, and Obama is BY FAR the lesser of these two evils.

[Saturn500]

^YES

[Undecided]

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That. Voting for Stein in protest is a luxury that only those living in safely Democratic states can afford.

[JohnE]

Or safey red states where it isn't going to make a difference either. It's only the swing states the really matter (which is a whole other can of worms, sorry).

[largeham]

Also, I'm quite frankly getting tired of this idea that democrats are as bad as republicans when the evidence doesn't point to that.  Obama stopped the defense of DOMA, ended DADT, improved the economy, reduced the deficit, is pulling us out of that stupid war as soon as he can, and so forth.  His ideas are actually doing good.  Granted, he's a politician and has also done some bad things, like the drone strikes.  No one is saying he's perfect or a messiah.

He stopped support for DOMA because queer people have been pushing for rights for decades, not because he is a nice guy. Getting rid of DADT was necessary considering that the US military is having a recruitment crisis. Don't forget Obama voted for the invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq, and after pulling out of the latter increased troops in the former. $288 billion of the stimulus (just the one) was made of tax breaks. But anyway, what do you expect? A chunk of the administration is made up of ex-Clinton hacks. Also, Timothy Geithner, Bush's president of the New York Fed and architect of the AIG bailout.[/quote]

On the other hand, Romney is most certainly bad for this country, economically and socially speaking.

Both Obama and Romney will be good for some of the country and bad for the rest. A country isn't some monolithic beast.

I'd rather take the man who has actually given me more rights and passed a law that allowed me to actually stay insured, as well as started a process that would give us an approximation of UHC, than take the man who wants to take those away.

Sure, vote for the guy who has attacked workers, sided with the banks, increased drone strikes, increased domestic surveillance and pledged to cut Medicare and Social Security. It doesn't matter that the cuts are less than Romney's, cuts are still cuts.

So, please, stop this passive aggressive silliness :-/

What passive aggressive silliness?

Anyway, as Thomas Frank recently wrote in Harper's:

Republicans have grasped that it is a contest not about issues but the relative positives of the two parties, then they are free to move ever rightward, dragging the center with them, always keeping a few inches away from the president's anxious, conciliatory grasp.

[JohnE]

Republicans are moving farther and farther to the right and dragging the center behind them, so the best immediate course of action is to... help them get elected by throwing your vote away?

[largeham]

Or not vote for a party that is voting to the right because they spend their time crying about bi-partisanship. No, the point is to organise outside of the established parties. Or at the very least not guarantee your vote to the Democrats so they can do whatever they want, while knowing that liberals will vote for them anyway.

[Witchyjoshy]

He stopped support for DOMA because queer people have been pushing for rights for decades, not because he is a nice guy.

And would Bush, Romney or McCain would have done the same?

The answer is no, they would have obstinately stood against it no matter how hard queers pushed for their rights.

Getting rid of DADT was necessary considering that the US military is having a recruitment crisis. Don't forget Obama voted for the invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq, and after pulling out of the latter increased troops in the former.

Oh please.  Gay people were already joining the military before DADT was abolished.

You're acting like Obama pushed for drafting gay people, but these are people who want to join the military for one reason or another.

It was still a push towards equal rights and he had a hand in it.  I'm not about to say "Oh, it was really the people" when Obama was the key person in the key position to make it happen.

$288 billion of the stimulus (just the one) was made of tax breaks. But anyway, what do you expect? A chunk of the administration is made up of ex-Clinton hacks. Also, Timothy Geithner, Bush's president of the New York Fed and architect of the AIG bailout.

And the stimulus saved our economy from crashing into a pitiful mess.  Could it have been more efficient?  Yes.  It did a good thing, though.

Both Obama and Romney will be good for some of the country and bad for the rest. A country isn't some monolithic beast.

Obama's been good for the country so far.  He'll continue to be good for it in the future.

Sure, vote for the guy who has attacked workers, sided with the banks, increased drone strikes, increased domestic surveillance and pledged to cut Medicare and Social Security. It doesn't matter that the cuts are less than Romney's, cuts are still cuts.

Actually, it does matter.

Things are not as black and white as you seem to believe.  What little harm Obama has done is nowhere compared to the potential harm that Romney could cause.  The good that Obama has caused far surpasses what little good Romney could bring to the nation.

Obama is just flat-out the better president than Romney.

EDIT: Here's the thing.

I have to face losing rights if Romney gets in office, both as a gay man and as a lower middle class individual, and as someone who is still on his parents' insurance.

There are women here that will lose rights if Romney accomplishes even half of what he promised to the extreme right.

Hell, as it stands, in Wisconsin the unions got absolutely neutered by Walker. The recall failed and we're stuck with him.  I don't want that happening country-wide.

[Osama bin Bambi]

Wow, it's almost as if largeham has absolutely nothing to lose by Romney being elected president

[m52nickerson]

Sure, vote for the guy who has attacked workers, sided with the banks,

Pretty sure when you post arguments in another thread and they are shown to be BS, they would also be BS here as well.

... and pledged to cut Medicare and Social Security. It doesn't matter that the cuts are less than Romney's, cuts are still cuts.

Cuts?  Really when did Obama do that.  Before you answer you should make sure you understand how the funding for those programs work.

[Veras]

However, it doesn't change the fact that it is not set up for it.  Voting for a third party really is throwing away your vote right now.  No amount of whining on the internet that people aren't voting third party will change this simple fact.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I cannot stomach this assertion.

What makes voting for somebody who has no chance of winning "throwing away" your vote?  Would I be throwing my vote away if I voted for Obama (down 12 points in my state) or John Gregg (the Democratic candidate for Governor, who is down by more than 10 as well)?  They have no chance of winning here.  Would I be throwing away my vote by voting for Stein or Imaginary Green Gubernatorial candidate?

How is it not "throwing away" your vote to cast your ballot for a candidate who candidate who you fundamentally and seriously disagree with, just because you find the other major one to be even more objectionable?  Jill Stein has the right to run for office.  I have the right to vote for her (if I choose to do so).

Don't forget Obama voted for the invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq

No, he didn't.  Obama wasn't elected to the U.S. Senate until 2004.  We invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.  At the time, he was a member of the Illinois State Senate, and as such did not get to vote on the war.  What's more, he actually spoke out against it, calling it a "dumb war" in 2002, and he went so far as to vote against an appropriations bill to fund the war in 2007, because the bill did not include a plan to bring the troops home.

Republicans are moving farther and farther to the right and dragging the center behind them, so the best immediate course of action is to... help them get elected by throwing your vote away?

Actually, the quote he posted is saying that the Democrats keep reaching to the center, allowing the Republicans to redefine the center as the Democratic position, and then shift to the right.  The Democrats accept this, and reach to the new center.  The Democrats are shifting to the right as well.

Think about it.  The ACA is basically the same as the Republican counter-proposal to Clinton's healthcare reform plan from the early 1990's.

The Democratic Party has to shoulder some of the blame for that too.

... and pledged to cut Medicare and Social Security. It doesn't matter that the cuts are less than Romney's, cuts are still cuts.

Cuts?  Really when did Obama do that.  Before you answer you should make sure you understand how the funding for those programs work.

The Affordable Care Act did cut $716 billion from Medicare.  Both Clinton and Obama talked about it at the convention.  Long story short, it doesn't cut benefits, it cuts payments to hospitals and insurance companies for a variety of reasons.  It's probably also relevant to the conversation that Paul Ryan proposed the exact same cuts in his budget.

The only thing I can find about Obama cutting Social Security is that he said that he was willing to do so during the debt reduction discussions.  But that was him coming to the Republican position.

[Witchyjoshy]

However, it doesn't change the fact that it is not set up for it.  Voting for a third party really is throwing away your vote right now.  No amount of whining on the internet that people aren't voting third party will change this simple fact.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I cannot stomach this assertion.

What makes voting for somebody who has no chance of winning "throwing away" your vote?  Would I be throwing my vote away if I voted for Obama (down 12 points in my state) or John Gregg (the Democratic candidate for Governor, who is down by more than 10 as well)?  They have no chance of winning here.  Would I be throwing away my vote by voting for Stein or Imaginary Green Gubernatorial candidate?

How is it not "throwing away" your vote to cast your ballot for a candidate who candidate who you fundamentally and seriously disagree with, just because you find the other major one to be even more objectionable?  Jill Stein has the right to run for office.  I have the right to vote for her (if I choose to do so).

It's about dividing.

If enough people vote for Jill Stein instead of Obama, then it doesn't matter how much of the country is liberal -- Romney wins and the conservatives, who tend to be a unified base (though maybe not so much recently) win because they generally don't bother with third party candidates.

One vote may not make a difference, but a thousand votes can.  Unfortunately, Jill Stein is too big of a risk.

Sure, people are free to vote for Jill Stein.  That's perfectly fine.  But they should be aware of what that vote accomplishes, and shouldn't act offended when the facts are told to them.

(Myself, I'd happily vote for her in 2016 if she ran on the democratic ticket and not on a ticket that's known for being a one-issue ticket -- namely, environmentalism, which is good but not the only important thing.)

What I do not agree with, however, is the outright lies that are flying around and being used as justification for voting against Obama.  I see enough of it on the right, I don't need to see it on the left, either.

I seriously don't want a repeat of Bush Jr.  I really don't.

[Veras]

I understand the argument that dividing the vote may result in the least-favored candidate winning, but that's not what I'm talking about.  I take issue with the suggestion that it is possible to "waste" a vote by casting your ballot for somebody that you agree with.  Disagree with it all you want, but saying that somebody "wasted" their vote is as judgmental and offensive as it would be for a conservative to tell you that you "wasted" your vote on Obama.

I'll pose to you the same question I asked somebody else in the other thread when this came up.  Pretend that the Democratic Party is a third party.  Imagine instead, that the Republican Party and the Constitution Party are the two major parties.  Could you cast your ballot for Mitt Romney for President?  Your choice is between very conservative and holyfuckingshit conservative.  Could you, as a liberal, vote for somebody who will pursue policies that you oppose that strongly?  That is the kind of question that socialists face when looking at the Democrats and Republicans--I see more of a difference than largeham does, but it's not that big.  At the end of the day, I have to decide if I, as a socialist, can bring myself to vote for the center-right capitalist Democrats, or the far right capitalist Republicans.

Personally, I haven't made that decision yet.

EDIT:  As  former card-carrying member of the Green Party, let me assure you emphatically that the Greens are NOT a one-issue party.  Sorry, I hate that misconception.

[Witchyjoshy]

I think you'll find that each person answers that dilemma differently.

...Personally, though, I'm not voting against Romney, I'm voting for Obama.  So I can see where you're coming from.

That being said, again people are free to vote how they want.  They shouldn't let me or anyone else tell them otherwise.  But to say that democrats and republicans are equal evils?  And to imply that anyone who votes for Obama and doesn't want to vote third party due to valid concerns is a tool?

That's not even close to reality.

Also, on the subject, haven't there been cases where third party candidates that were actually capable of winning were invited to the debate?

I mean, I can sorta understand the limitations.  If you didn't draw the line somewhere, you'd have 20 presidential candidates on stage all trying to answer questions over each other, and it'd be pretty much chaos and hard to keep track of.

[Veras]

That being said, again people are free to vote how they want.  They shouldn't let me or anyone else tell them otherwise.  But to say that democrats and republicans are equal evils?  And to imply that anyone who votes for Obama and doesn't want to vote third party due to valid concerns is a tool?

That's not even close to reality.

I never said that anybody who doesn't want to vote third party is a tool, nor did I intend to imply it.

Nor did I say that the Democrats and Republicans are equal.  I have argued (and will continue to argue) that, of all of the possible political philosophies out there, the Democrats and the Republicans are very close together, and very conservative.

Also, on the subject, haven't there been cases where third party candidates that were actually capable of winning were invited to the debate?

I mean, I can sorta understand the limitations.  If you didn't draw the line somewhere, you'd have 20 presidential candidates on stage all trying to answer questions over each other, and it'd be pretty much chaos and hard to keep track of.

Ross Perot was invited to the debates in 1992.  If I recall correctly (and I might not, seeing as I was five years old), he bombed magnificently.  Though I don't know that he ever had a real chance of winning, he ended up with a little less than 19% of the popular vote.

Yeah, you definitely couldn't have all of the candidates for every little tiny party on stage.  Somebody suggested in the "improve the debates" thread that anybody who was on enough ballots to reach the 270 electoral votes necessary to win should be invited (Stein would be invited), which I thought was a good idea.  Somebody else (ironbite, I think), said that a candidate should be invited if they make it onto the ballot in every state (Stein would not be invited).