A Quick Post on Voting Third Party

I posted this on my Facebook wall this morning, in response to an article in the National Journal. I figure that I have a handful of friends in this group, and I'd like to try to at least flip a vote or two.

A quick rant for this morning, reading the below article. My apologies in advance.

• If you voted for McCain and/or Romney, and you can't vote for Clinton, I can respect that.
• If you voted for Obama twice but have soured on his tenure and think he did a bad job, and you can't vote for Clinton, I can respect that.
• If you voted for Obama once or twice, and you think he's done a *good* job, and you're NOT voting for Clinton, please, *please* reconsider. I know this is a real phenomenon based on polling data: there are many people who like Obama who can't or won't pull the trigger for Clinton and are opting for Johnson or Stein. I suspect most of them are in their 20s and early 30s.

You don't have to convince me that Clinton is deeply flawed. The transfer of classified information over an unsecured email server--and the unconvincing efforts of her allies to downplay it--drives me insane. Her penchant for secrecy is downright destructive. She and her husband have used the halo of the presidency to enrich themselves far beyond what is appropriate; overpaid corporate tycoons run companies that at least add something to society. Clinton made money by giving speeches at $250,000 a pop.

But she's essentially running for Obama's third term, a continuation of what we've seen. If you're happy with Obama, you'll probably be decently happy with Clinton.

And she is not Trump, who knows nothing about anything other than what he watches on cable news; who is utterly self-obsessed; who acts out of personal pique *all the time*; who exploited birtherism to get a political profile; who barely knows the structure of government; who admires governmental exhibits of strength, even when it results in the deaths of thousands of innocent people (see: Tiananmen Square); who represents a genuine risk to global safety and stability; and who, at minimum, tolerates affiliation with this generation's white supremacist movement, and, at maximum, genuinely sympathizes with its evil worldview.

A vote is not an exercise in self-actualization; it's an exercise of genuine political power, however small. Entertaining the idea of voting third party was reasonable through the summer; after all, it was plausible that someone could catch fire, like Perot in 1992, and have a legitimate chance. But that's simply not the case; polls are clear that 80% of people are voting for Clinton or Trump.

Many of my co-partisans tried to stop this nightmare, and we failed. You don't have to do the same. If you wake up on November 9, and Trump won, what are you going to say if you voted for Johnson or Stein?