You are saying that the one man who WILL win is the man that disagrees with you the most. How can you make that statement, not knowing who will win?
Hawg beat me to it. I don't need to know who is going to win.
I only need to know two things in order to make that statement.
1) Who
could win.
2) Who doesn't stand a chance.
McCain
could win...if he gets enough support. Barr isn't going to win and there is no "if" about the kind of support he is going to get.
Barr has no "war chest" to speak of. Additionally--and this may sound strange to you--he lacks the "legitimacy" of McCain...or even Obama. Why? McCain and Obama
earned their nominations. They ran in primaries against
tough opposition and FOUGHT their way to the top.
Barr was merely selected. Who'd he run against? Debate against? How much fundraising and speechifying did Barr have to make? Do you think he traveled all over these United States stumping for his right to be a candidate? He was not forged in that crucible. Barr is the definition of "selected, not elected".
That is a weakness all 3rd Party candidates share.
Your vote did not count for either Clinton or Bush, right?
It didn't help Bush and it didn't hurt Clinton. In retrospect, I would have preferred it to do one or the other.
If that is true, then everybody who voted for Bush wasted their vote too, since he lost. If one of them had stayed home or if all of them had stayed home, it would not have changed the outcome of the election. Correct?
Not exactly. Here's the difference. Everyone who voted for Bush was making their absolute best possible play. They were going for the brass ring. In that sense, they in no way wasted their vote.
I did. I did because I
intentionally relegated myself loser status through a protest vote. I was under no illusions about Perot's chances, just as
you are under no illusions about Barr's chances. I purposefully decided that "making a statement" was more important than actually making a play for the best possible President available.
When you put your best possible foot forward, your best effort, that is never a waste. When you decide before the starting pistol shot that you intend to come in dead last in the race...that is the definition of a wasted effort.
I
decided to lose. I picked it. I was making a higher moral statement. A combination of fatalism and the arrogance of youth. I had the courage to lose in order to make a statement for the higher good! I was no cool-aid drinking sheeple!
Anyone else getting sick of the phrases "cool-aid drinkers" and "sheeple", btw?
This is what I've learned since then.
A guy I agree with 60% of the time
in office beats a guy I agree with 90% who isn't in office. Beats the living crap out of him. Especially when the alternative is somebody I agree with only 24% of the time.
When 38-43% of the population is going to vote Republican because that is simply what they are always going to do, and a similar number is always going to vote Democrat because that is what
they do [remember what I wrote, 80% of people vote the same way their parents did?], 3rd parties can only serve one function:
Spoilers.
And they inevitably spoil the election of the one guy out of the two who agrees with them more often.
I'm older now. If given a choice between making a "statement" OR maybe having a shot at getting a Judge Roberts or Alito appointed...I'm going to go with the chance at the judges.