the only wasted vote is the one not made.
We are privileged to live in a democracy where we have the opportunity to vote and influence government. That privilege carries with it a weight of responsibility. That responsibility is to vote your conscience. It burns me to hear someone to say they vote to candidate X rather than candidate P because candidate P "doesn't have a chance". Who gets to define - does not have a chance? It seems to me we are selling our vote, selling our rights, trading our responsibilities to the "experts" telling who is or who is not "a wasted vote".I can understand folks voting "against" a candidate in the GENERAL election. But not in a primary. The primary is about ideas and principles. Shaping the direction the party should go and focus. It is not about the pundits deciding for us who has a better opportunity to beat the other parties candidate - who has not even been elected yet - but the pundits are picking for us.
Let me lay it on the table - we as a country need to wake up and realize that EVERYONE has an agenda. The media has an agenda - to sell more media. Of course they want a match up between candidate X and candidate Z. It is like the heavy weight fight of the year - GUARANTEED to bring in more viewers and SELL more media. It is not necessarily wrong - they have a vested interest in protecting / promoting their jobs. However the public has to wake up to this. I am not saying the media is evil. We have to have news in order to make informed decision. I a just saying
When the news informs of our decisions - we have a problem.
In other news - yesterday was the Washington state caucuses, which I participated in. Ron Paul won 20% of my precinct and 21% 0f the delegates out of our pooled caucuses. Romney won 40% and he is not actively campaigning. McCain came in second and Huck was a distant 4th. Ironically, Huck won the straw vote (had the most participates) but they were completely ignorant of the process, and bullheaded. They would not strike a deal with the Paul folks that would have gained Paul 3 more delegates and Huck in a tie for second. The Paul camp won the award for smartest campaign, leveraging 10 delegates out of 15 declared participates...
1 comment:
Yeah, but there is hope and there is reality. Paul cannot possibly gain enough delegates to win. It is mathematically impossible. After the first few primaries he had no chance at all--mathematically. As a result, people could have been voting for the 2 or 3 who did have a chance.
Besides, we are given liberty and freedom in this country and part of that freedom is to NOT vote if there is no one worthy of voting for. Not voting is not always a waste. Sometimes it is a vote for what is right.
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