Voting isn't Marriage

[CousinIT]

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Good advice.

There is no perfect candidate. All of them have some flaws, or at some point have done or said or voted for something you disagree with, or even currently hold some positions you're not crazy about. This is just as true with respect to the candidate you avidly support, a fact which in your enthusiasm you might have chosen to ignore or have justified or whataboutted away. My choice will be the flawed candidate who is most likely to beat Trump, ideology be damned.

[wendyb-NC]

2. I like that.

It rings true, because democracy is not primarily a spectator activity.

[redstatebluegirl]

3. This is a big reason we lost in 2016.

So many voters who said "if my candidate isn't the nominee I'll take my toys and go home". So juvenile, and destructive.

[CousinIT]

4. Yep. That's why I posted this. n/t

[Thekaspervote]

8. Then thx very much for posting!! Our absolute #1 goal is to remove the squatter from the WH

[Cha]

25. Thank you, CousinIT.. it's perfect!

[DENVERPOPS]

11. Amen to that RSBG

I can't tell you how many of my friends, who were Bernie supporters decided to stay home and not vote in 2016. We need to get done with this Primary and ALL get behind the Democrat Candidate full bore.

We know they (Republican Party and Putin and who ever else) are going to try every which way to rig the election. We can and must try...........

Personally, either way the election comes out, there are going to be problems. Some of them, quite likely on the nightmarish level......

When has there ever been an election where the Republican/Trump voters declared all out physical violence on the people voting for a Democrat........This insanity is so far off the charts it's un-real.......

[redstatebluegirl]

21. Yea me too.

Some of the graduate students I know who had Bernie hats, t-shirts, cups stickers the works. Told me that his nomination was stolen by the "democratic party elites", of which I was clearly one. Ok then, I have voted for hundreds of democrats over the years, and more than a few of them I did not choose in the primary but they were my best option to overturn what the crazy GOP wanted to do. I do not consider the "my guy or nothing" people to be true patriots but rather people who have no concept of majority rules.

They are planning as we speak to destroy our chances of winning in 2020. More than a few of them told me they wanted to "blow up the system" because that was the only way to make people see it their way.

[LongtimeAZDem]

20. They're already getting ready to do it again

[Recursion]

5. The ballot box is not your personal performance art space

It's a chance to reduce the amount of harm done.

[MineralMan]

6. Yup. Work for your favorite during the primaries, and then

get on board with the Party's nominee afterwards. It's a formula that has worked for a long time. It's the only formula that can.

[captdemo]

23. I go liberal on primaries, then vote for the nominee!

Absolutely! Even though I always go very liberal in the primaries, I always go for the Democratic nominee in the general election. I'm pushing right now for Warren, but would be especially happy with a Biden/Warren ticket which I think might be the strongest we could have to beat the Republicans. That way, even Sanders and Warren fans would be more likely to vote for the final ticket! I suspect Biden will be the nominee in any case, and I am fine with that!

[brooklynite]

7. I think some people here think voting is more like Uber...

...where you don't have to share the car with anyone else.

[IronLionZion]

10. Our top polling candidates are all excellent choices

I'll have no hesitation voting for any of them over anyone the GOP puts up if it isn't Trump. Even our worst Democrats are better than Trump.

[Ferrets are Cool]

12. I've never seen a perfect candidate...but I've damned sure seen a

slimy piece of hog shit candidate and unfortunately, he stole the 2016 election.

[aikoaiko]

13. Its good advice for marriage, too.

[Blue_true]

18. True. Select the person that is closest to what you think is ideal.

I know when I was really young, I fretted about being rejected by a girl (in grade school) and later woman that I liked. At some point I finally realized that I would never meet the "perfect" mate and that if a person that I was interested in was not interested in my, that I could move on with my life knowing that another woman would come along one day. Of course if I had gotten married, I would have done my part to make that marriage work, but rejection is not the end of the world.

[LiberalLovinLug]

14. Great advice, for First Past the Post systems

Too bad the US and Canada don't have a Proportional Representation system. You don't have to wait for one party to run the perfect "one" candidate. Your vote always counts. If a minority party wins a seat, you work with them. I know its such a foreign concept, in more ways than one, to Americans. The idea of working together with, say, the Green Party, if they had a better chance to unseat a Republican than a Democrat did in a certain district. To actually look to the Green party as allies rather than bitter rivals.

[DENVERPOPS]

22. That's fine

except when the green party candidate has ties to the Russians, and her only purpose is to split the vote by grabbing voters from the Dems.........Such was the case with Jill and Hillary.
It only came out after the election that "Mrs.Greenie" had ties and meetings with the Russians.......

We had a situation like that in Colorado when Josie Heath? lost to Dottie Lamb, broke away, ran as an independent for the sole purpose of splitting the Dem Vote, therefore allowing the Republican to win.....

[LiberalLovinLug]

24. These types of soviet style suspicions is bothersome

And would disappear with PR voting.

Sorry, but it stretches the imagination way too much for me to believe that Stein was some Russian agent that only ran to split the Democratic party. Can you, just for a second, hypothetically, imagine that maybe...maybe she ran because she believed that not enough was being done about climate change. Or corporate influence in politics. Or the many other issues that we also, as Democratic supporters, share. And she believed that Democrats were too much in the pocket of large corporatations to do anything meaningful about it. (I'm not saying this to be clear...vote Democratic!!!)

And perhaps Nader, did not overnight get exposed to a full moon and change from a respected consumer rights advocate, into a greedy, narcissist asshole who secretly wanted Republicans and their corporate donors to win. That maybe he actually believed in the Green party platform. An internationally respected party the world over.

Did he and Jill know they might take away votes from Democrats? Of course. But what I don't get from Democratic voters is that the last time I checked, you live in a democracy. If someone thinks they can do a better job they can run, they should be able to. Liberals defend to the death someone exercising their democratic right to kneel, to protest, to vote. But the right to run in an election? How dare they!

My position is that if the Democratic party is losing votes to another party, maybe they should look at adopting some of the same positions. Maybe do things like Warren and Sanders are doing with rejecting corporate donations for instance. That is the way to defang a third party like the Greens. It seems bizarre to me to invent crazy conspiracy theories instead as the way to fight them off.

But anyways, my main point was that IF there were PR voting, of some variation, if say 47% voted Democratic, and 48% voted Republican, and 5% voted for Green. Instead of how it is today, where a Republican would take the seat, the Green candidate could join their votes with the Democratic candidate. The only cost would be that Democrats, if they gained power, would have to listen to Green party environmental concerns more.

I think that the right would find it difficult to retain power in that way.
I realize I am looking at this from a Big Picture perspective. And that in reality, in the present voting system, I would hope that if there was a close race especially, one better vote D in order to keep out an R. That's a no brainer.

But its a huge leap from that position to believe that any person or party that dares to run for election in a democracy, is evil and is only running, spending all their time, energy, money, etc doing it, for the sole reason of taking down the only other party that shares probably 90% of their own platform and instead running in order to allow the party that believes the opposite to gain power. How can anyone seriously think that?

[DENVERPOPS]

26. In addition to a lot of pics of her dining with Russians

There is this:

"A new report commissioned by members of the U.S. Senate intelligence committee expands upon another facet of Russia’s pro-Trump operation: an effort to divert votes away from Hillary Clinton and toward Green Party candidate Jill Stein."

"An analysis from NBC News found an extensive, coordinated effort by Russian operatives to boost Stein’s candidacy by targeting voters from key Democratic demographics."

***********************************************************************

Otherwise, I don't disagree with much that you pointed out....thx for a good read of good points....

[LiberalLovinLug]

27. Thanks

But I have to say one thing. How in any way is this the fault of Jill Stein or the Green Party?
In fact its pretty predictable. That's an easy move for Putin.

The only thing people can point to is a dinner hosted by RT. A journalistic outlet for the likes of Thom Hartman, Ed Schultz, and others. Some demonize any liberal that used that platform to get out the pro liberal point of view. I don't. Not with so much of the more easy accessible news media bent so far to the right, where someone like Cenk Uygur is even too radical.

Its obvious to me that Putin allowed American left of center voices on that platform because he knew it would help to create chaos and divisions on the left. And it also gave voice to critics of the American system itself including both Ds and Rs. Combined with Putin's work to also support radical right voices, he worked both sides. But in no way did Putin control what those American pundits said. I for one, welcomed whatever major outlet liberal voices could get onto. The important thing was the message, not the platform that distributed it. But I digress.

In that dinner, as Stein explained:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/366126-jill-stein-2015-russia-dinner-with-putin-was-a-nonevent

"There was no translator at the table," Stein said. "Vladimir Putin came in very late, with three, four people that I thought were his bodyguards, turns out they were core people in his administration, but you never would have known that."

"There were no introductions, no conversations," she added. "Russians spoke Russian, I spoke to the only person in earshot who spoke English, who was a German diplomat that was sitting to my right. So it was really quite a non-event."


The respected progressive ex Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson said at the time, " recent treatment of Stein is “shameful.”

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2017/12/21/that-infamous-moscow-dinner-where-michael-flynn-and-jill-stein-sat-with-putin-utahs-rocky-anderson-was-there-too/


There is no evidence at all, that she worked with Russia, and her attempt to help Hillary by raising funds to challenge the results in the Rust Belt did not go over well in Moscow.

https://thinkprogress.org/russia-jill-stein-2016-election-interference-48dff3966227/

"Coincidentally, Russian attitudes only began to sour on Stein after she publicly announced a fundraising effort to raise money to pay for vote recounts in key midwest states where Trump’s margin of victory was razor-thin."

I just think its preposterous to try and peddle Stein and/or Nader as having even a desire to coordinate with Putin to subvert the election in their own country, especially in order to empower someone like Trump. I think we look like absolute idiots when we peddle that kind of rubbish. How can we criticise looney opinions on the right like Q when we believe such idiocy.

And again, I feel I must, for the sake of the trigger fingers on here, insist that I am NOT advocating voting Green. Vote Democratic please. IF PR was enabled, its a different ball game. But today....the only option is Democratic, and specifically, whomever wins the Democratic primary. Too much at stake to vote third party no matter how much one thinks they are undeserving of abuse for simply participating in democracy.

[mwooldri]

15. But the bus only runs on Tuesdays...

If voting is like public transport, in a lot of places it's really sucky, or worse non-existent.

I see voting more like speed dating... At the end you pick who you would like a follow up date with, with one caveat - you have to have a follow up date.

But yes, voting isn't marriage. There are some sucky Democrats, and I'm sure a good Republican might surface one day, though not out of the Trump turd farm. One doesn't want to hitch their carriage for the same ride all the time in politics.

[betsuni]

16. I liked what Oprah said: "She's not coming over to your house. You don't have to like her."

Presidents are not coming over to your damn house and you don't have to marry them and they shouldn't be a celebrity entertainer with a fan club.

[Blue_true]

17. Bingo. nt

[highplainsdem]

19. K&R!