A game with stakes as high as this one has no room for vanity plays. I have no idea why people refuse to learn the lesson from 2000 -- I guess it's just too hard to take responsibility for all that's come after -- but there's really no excuse at all.
It's all hands on deck, man.
You really think the points you identify are sufficient to justify a McCain presidency?
Those who cannot distinguish vanity from principle don't deserve a vote.
Paul: The whole purpose of elections is to blur the lines between vanity and principle... which is only slightly more important than determining who holds public office.
CharleyCarp: The main lesson learned over the last 8 years is that the Democrats are just as ineffective as everyone originally thought they were.
Having said that...
I personally believe that Obama is the best candidate the Democrats can put forward that has chance of reclaiming that office (and, in my more idealistic mind, reforming the Democratic party). The real work begins in holding Obama accountable to the issues on which he's campaigning should he take office.
And, as a friend of mind reminded me, anyone who wants to hold an office with that much power has already revealed a significant enough character flaw that they should immediately be disqualified from holding said office.
Two questions: 1. Would you also be willing to stay home if you were a voter in PA, OH, FL, whatever? (Actually, I'm making an assumption that you're a voting resident in CA, but I don't know where you were before grad school, so maybe you're actually voting in your "old" state, whatever that was?)
2. Why stay home entirely? Do none of the other parties appeal to you?
I can't really get worked up about the VP choice in one direction or the other. I don't just mean Obama's choice, I mean any choice. It's such a low-importance position.
In fact: shouldn't you want to vote for Obama more, Paul, since an Obama victory would actually take Biden out of the Senate, where he can really get things done, and put him in this do-nothing position where his job is (at least from what I can gather from our current VP) to snarl at reporters once in a while?
More seriously: I wouldn't go as far as Charley and call this vanity, but I do ask whether these points should be enough to withdraw support from a Democratic ticket in an election of this magnitude.
Bryan: is your friend Groucho Marx?
He is Groucho's brother... Karl. And I never said my friends were original.
Weak. So. Totally. Weak. If you clearly can't vote for McCain, then vote for Obama. Life is full of choices we'd rather not make.
Also - as you may have noticed from past elections, there are all these, like, other offices down the ballot you can vote for. In our state, sadly, propositions to defeat as well. Prop 8 needs you to vote no.
Get over it. I dislike Biden as well. But I'm absolutely 100% going to vote for the Obama/Biden ticket because my eyes have been f*cking wide open since 2000.
I generally stay out of these debates (note paucity of politically blogging on this site, though those who know me personally know me to be a political junkie). I do make a distinction b/t vanity and principle...but I'm also a pragmatist. I agree with Paul that Biden's flaws and errors are egregious (I hate the Bankruptcy Reform Act! Having worked in Bankruptcy court, I hate it all the more!), notwithstanding his authorship of VAWA.
But the stakes are too high, even assuming that one's vote doesn't matter b/c one is in a non-swing state. If everyone thought like that, it's the classic free-rider problem. Principles are important, but I'm a pragmatist, and I understand why Obama picked Biden--it was strategic. I'll still vote for Obama, because pragmatism rules the day for me, even as I would desire the privilege of idealism. I became very upset over the media hype about the PUMAs, who appear to me to be raging narcissists who cut off their own noses to spite their own faces .
Oh, and incidentally, I only recently watched Duck Soup. It was great!
Also, not to comment and run, but that's all I'll be saying today, in case anyone asks me a followup question. I still reel from Election 2000, and I've never really gotten over it. I do not in general talk about politics, as it is exhausting. I try to be an informed citizen, and I do believe in deliberative democracy and public discourse, but my politics are like my religion (or lack thereof)--private.
The "if everyone thought like that" argument always struck me as more rhetorical than anything else. I'm not so sure I can defend Paul posting about not voting, but I tend to believe one vote doesn't actually matter in state or national elections. So as long as you act the same way you would otherwise it is pretty irrelevant whether you actually vote or not.
One of two men will win the presidency. The only principle at play is the decision which. You can sit out, and I can call you vain: hardly surprising when you announce that you think your principles are more important than the lives of thousands -- perhaps millions -- directly affected in a negative way by the choice.
As we learned in 2000, cheerleading for sit-outs, or frivolous 3d party runs, is the same, in practical terms, as cheerleading for the other side. Wherever one lives. So no: I don't think 2000 Nader voters/cheerleaders from California escape all responsibility. They were part of a movement that led 100,000 Floridians to think they had a luxury they didn't have, that one really was just as bad as the other. I have a friend from Oregon who went for that notion, in the name of principle: lesser evil is still evil, and all that. Guess what? In the event, it's nothing but vanity.
CharleyCarp: Bullshit.
Vanity is assuming I should vote for your party because your party doesn't suck as much as the other party. There were puh-lenty of Democrats who championed this insane war in which we've gotten ourselves... and *one* of those Democrats ended up leaving the party and will be speaking at the Republican convention. And guess what? He just so happened to be Gore's choice for VP in 2000 - so don't give me this line of absolute crap about how Nader voters are responsible for the failings of the Democrats in 2000.
That dog ain't hunting.
How, exactly, do the mistakes of Democrats after 2001 absolve Nadar voters of responsibility in 2000? Even your boldface type doesn't square that illogical equation.
If I had my way, I'd never again vote for any Democrat who voted for the war. But, as was well put above, I don't have that luxury right now. Frankly, it's a pretty silly conceit to give Obama credit for opposing the war when he was never faced with voting for or against it, but he gets credit anyway. I'd rather he not chosen what I believe to be a knee-jerk hawk as a running mate. But Biden's no Cheney and Obama's no Bush, so I'll cast my Obama vote with the greatest hope that we won't forget the lessons of '01/'02 or 2000 for that matter.
The dog does indeed hunt, because the dog didn't confuse the orderly passage of time.
While any American is free not to vote, no American is free of responsibility for the consequences of staying home. So long as one accepts that, he may do what he will.
So I should always vote Democrat even when that Democrat is really a Republican? And you're calling me illogical?
Wait, aren't there two different hot-headed arguments being had here? 1) Whether liberals should vote for Obama/Biden for reasons of a) the greater good vs. b) compromising individual principle; and 2) Whether it was wrong to vote for Nader instead of Gore/Lieberman, as Lieberman arguably defected and is scum. Let's not conflate these two discussion threads or elide the distinctions, even though I am staying out of the entire thing because I am all about comity and the only way I can ensure that is by never talking about politics out loud with other people.
Bryan: No one could think less of Sen. Lieberman than I. A blind man can see, though, how much better he is/was than Dick Cheney.
And of course, a VP Lieberman would be in a completely different category regarding governance than Cheney has been: Joe would've been a helper, and would have had to overcome Holbrooke (or whoever got State), Dems in Congress, Republicans who wouldn't have wanted to give Gore a war victory, and Gore himself to pull any shenanigans. Instead we got a guy who pulls the strings, and is principally responsible for Iraq, Yoo-ism, Guantanamo, etc. There's no chance that VP Lieberman would've been the principal voice on foreign policy.
That said, I'm going to bow out of the discussion. Instead, let me send us all back to another time: a good friend of mine was on NPR last night talking about his grandfather. Listen to the speeches, and tell me you'd vote for that guy.
Lest I give anyone else the last word...
I don't think people quite remember just how right-wing Gore and Lieberman were in their campaign. Nor do they remember that part of the Nader vote was to get the Green Party across that 5% margin so they could be eligible for federal funding. That seemed very possible - even likely - at the time. Now, if you were to ask me if I would vote for Nader again in 2000 knowing that the Greens wouldn't come close to that 5% - yeah, I might want that to do that over again. I said "might".
Democrats who put the blame these last 8 years on the 2000 Nader voters did not learn the fundamental lesson from that election - mainly, don't drive your voters away by pandering to the right.
That's what cost Gore the 2000 elections. Well... that and Katherine Harris, the Supreme Court, marginalized black voters, etc...
Mr Gowder compellingly describes what has led him to decide not to vote in November; no one could doubt that he will be pretty upset by the necessity that for him is involved. From faraway English perspective, I disappointed also re. choice of Biden. Surprised, too, but that is merely because from this distance all I really have known of Biden is that he the chap who made such creative use of Neil Kinnock’s speech from 1992 UK election. Quite bizarre, that! More recently I have viewed him on youtube sounding off to poor chap about his academic record (et al). Oh dear. May well be good strategy on Obama’s part, I don’t know. But what I do know, is that in context of last eight years, nothing regarding Obama’s choice of running mate can possibly be allowed to be dispositive re. turning up in November. I feel Mr Gowder’s pain.
Gore wasn't/isn't a Republican or even Republican-like.
But I'm used to Nadar-voters' constant, emphatically expressed belief that he was just as right-wing as Bush.
Can't reason with all of the people all of the time.
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