But we differ on how to approach it. As I said before, I respect your third party vote choice but I do believe voting McCain is the best alternative to beating Obama and the Democratic Party.

Let’s just say I hope we’re both right. I hope McCain gets a good many Hillary votes and I hope third party candidates lower Obama’s numbers enough to defeat him. 

Meanwhile, I think a Bob Barr website will be my next stop.

Thanks for the dialogue.

As for playing it safe down the middle, I was referring to the triangulation strategy which has dominated Democratic politics since at least Bill Clinton, not your choice to vote for McCain, or the strategies of centrist Democratic voters or activists. The leadership took impeachment off the table. It refused to cut off funding for the war on Iraq (what is with this euphemism war in Iraq, anyway?), all the while blaming Republicans for being unable to get anything done. It went along with this bailout of reckless investors, the FISA “compromise”, lifting the moratorium on new offshore drilling, subsidizing ghastly substitutes for real action on clean energy like clean coal and new nuclear power plants. I could go on, but the point is, you think this has little to do with playing it safe? How about muscling a pro-choice woman out of the race for the Senate seat of Rick Santorum, in favor of rising Democratic star Bob Casey, given time to make a speech at the convention?

Senators will probably not be voting to strike down Roe, unless Republicans actually try to pass a constitutional amendment. They will be voting on new Supreme Court justices, and though they had the numbers to filibuster the Bush appointees into oblivion, they laid down and played dead. If Samuel Alito was not bad enough for them to make a stand, who would be? He was confirmed 58-42. There is no excuse for that.

Climate change is progressing far faster than anyone predicted. If much more of the ice on Greenland and Antarctica falls into the ocean, there will be more than just a few islands and coastal villages drowned. This is not happening at a slow measured pace, and it is only one of the many ways the ecology is collapsing. I do not think slow measured change will make a dent in these trends, and by the time people wake up, it could well be too late to do much about it.

As for the logic behind voting third party, it is more than symbolic protest, regardless of whether it affects the outcome directly. Cindy Sheehan is not exactly third party, running as an independent (who refused to acknowledge an offer of endorsement), but she could win, and that would mean a new Speaker of the House. To me, that is a big deal. If she wins, or if enough people defy conventional wisdom to cost Obama the election, you do not think that would effect real change? I think it would certainly shake the Democratic Party to its roots. I think if Obama were to lose this election because five percent or so vote third party, the Democratic Party will splinter beyond recovery and fade into history. That did not happen in 2000 because Nader got too few votes, many of whom would not have voted for Gore in any event, to claim there was a signficant revolt brewing. The Democratic Party could not demonize, explain away, or recover from a substantial revolt, especially of women. That would turn political reality on its head, transforming the political landscape for good.

The Democratic Party in recent times has always thought it has the winning strategy, namely triangulation, playing it safe down the middle, of which Bill Clinton was the master. You may call this realistic, but it is a losing strategy. Clinton only won because Ross Perot made the most of his grudge against Republicans. Democrats took Congress last time because Republicans have dug themselves into such a deep hole, empty promises of ending the war on Iraq convinced many voters to give Democrats a chance. They made so much of that chance, Congress is less popular than Bush. Democrats may not have such a lock on Congress as you think. You say Roe will be off the table because of the Democratic majority? Not all Democratic Senators are pro-choice, and those who were made very little fuss over the Bush appointees. Voters have a choice of two sinking ships that have controlled politics for far too long, and both must share responsibility for the incredible mess they have created and fostered. You speak of flat-out revolt against corruption. What makes you think Hillary Clinton is above that?

It will take a decade or more of chipping away at the massive convoluted mess we call government to make change happen in acceptable ways.

If you mean acceptable to the powers that be, no doubt. People are fed up with what you call acceptable ways. This is why Obama can speak so loftily of hope and change without getting laughed out of the room. People are so desperate for change, they convince themselves another slick master of political strategy means what they want to believe he means. You speak of Obama seeing massive change as the solution to our problems? It is hard for me to imagine what you are talking about. Political reality is mainly credible to politicians and pundits. The catastrophic event you refer to as a possible game-changer has been developing for awhile. People are seething. They can sense something coming down the line much worse than Hurricane Katrina or this stock market crash. They want a realistic alternative. The media does its damnedest to make certain people think there is none, as if political reality is the best democracy can offer, nothing else is practical. The media has been rather successful in that endeavor, convincing most people the challengers are just a nuisance, only significant when the race is so close that a nuisance challenger can tip it, or when the challenger has so much money, like Ross Perot, he can doom one of the candidates. The media gatekeepers see to it a new voice like Heart is not given the time of day, so nobody else could be persuaded to take that leap of faith to run on her ticket, and who knows how many could be persuaded to bother registering. This is the sorry state of political reality. There is nothing practical about political reality, which is all about maintaining this corporate empire while systematically destroying the capacity of this planet to sustain life. This is the practice of the ideology of subordinating women and Nature to the will of absolute power corrupted absolutely. This may be the accepted way of the old boy network, but practical it is not.

Obama said in the first debate: There has never been a country on Earth that saw its economy decline and yet maintained its military superiority.

See, this is what passes for practical politics. The economy is declining for many reasons, but one big one is that this country is trying to maintain military superiority. No mainstream politician will question that it should, because since the end of the Cold War, it has been taken for granted that USA should be the lone military superpower. That this is unsustainable and leads to ever greater abuses of power is obvious, but not within the rigid boundaries of acceptable political discourse. Thus a totally impractical doctrine of maintaining an empire is considered practical, while pointing out the obvious flaws is considered hopelessly idealistic and impractical. The system is all backwards and fundamentally corrupt to the core, yet no mainstream politician dares to suggest more than superficial reforms to keep it going, including Hillary Clinton. This is not the best democracy has to offer, but it is the best working within the mainstream has to offer. Women need a party of our own.

I’m happy for you that you’ve found a choice for this election that gives you satisfaction. But I lived in Cynthia McKinney’s district in Georgia. I wouldn’t vote for her under any circumstances.

That aside - I think your characterization of McCain as a woman-hater is a bit over the top. He’s an old school sexist, but a woman-hater? I don’t think so. And as much as I detest Obama’s treatment of women, I don’t think he’s a “woman-hater” either.

But neither man gives a rat’s rump about women politically - that’s true.
 
I’m not voting for McCain because I accept his politics, quite the contrary. To me, he’s merely a political pawn who will be shackled (hopefully) by the Democratic majority in Congress. His main function is to keep Obama out of the oval office - to keep the seat warm for Hillary to return in 2012.

I respect your choice to vote Green. However, I’m wired differently and think more pragmatically about politics. I can see my choice paying off big in four years with a Hillary presidency and a reformed Democratic Party.

I’m genuinely interested in how you feel a vote for the Green Party will change the corruption in politics - especially in the Democratic Party - and when?
 
All things considered, I believe any vote I make other than McCain is basically a vote for Barack Obama. There’s no way I’d go there - not even indirectly.

My  butterflies are always stilled, however, when I consider the alternative of  the hard knot I’ll have in my stomach for the next four - make that likely eight - years if Obama wins.

I can only say that politics is a system in which strategies dominate, not ideals. Your take on this is a purely ideological one. We can pretend all day long that ideals rule in this society, but that is about as successful as tossing a plump tuna into a tank full of sharks.

Most politicians depend solely on strategy. The better ones work hard to navigate their way through the morass by trying to combine strategy AND ideals. 

I assume you are a third party candidate voter. You are certain to face defeat in the election. Your strategy is not to win, it’s to protest.  If you want to be a purist about it, why isn’t voting for certain defeat not “voting against one’s values.”

OR - if your vote is to accept certain defeat as a means to the end of HOLDING ON to your values, how is that different from my voting for an opposition candidate as a means to the end of holding on to my values?

Is certain defeat a  higher goal than the goal of temporarily accepting a hamstrung president in order to defeat a corrupt candidate? Especially since the process likely clears the way for Hillary Clinton to get to the oval office in four years?

Neither of us has a perfect option. I respect your form of protest and your strategy but it’s not the only one available

I think fear of embarrassment is an entirely appropriate emotion in such a case, swing state or no.

I don’t see a protest in refusing to vote against one’s values by voting against one’s values.  Unless, of course, one isn’t.