On Thu, 2008-06-19 at 09:35 -0600, Levi Pearson wrote: > Nor does it help Ron Paul, who was campaigning as a Republican. Doing > so would have given him some chance of winning if he'd won the > Republican candidacy, but in reality it just ensured that he wouldn't > be a candidate in the real election. It's hard to say, but I imagine > he planned it that way precisely because he would be stealing more > votes from the Republicans than the Democrats if he ran as a third > party.
Which is value of hopeless candidates. They may not be able to win, but they can make someone lose. Because American elections so often come down to hair thin margins, fence sitters have disproportionate power. As long as they don't become so extreme they decide that mutual destruction is preferable to mutual benefit. Voting third party only makes sense if you've drunk so much kool-aid you really think both candidates are as bad as Hitler. If you are still sane, however, it makes more sense to pick between the candidates that stand a chance of winning. When you vote third party, you (and everyone like you) are increasing the probability that the candidate closest to your position will lose. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
