Third-Party Candidates

My friend Derek posted on why he can't vote for a third-party candidate and I thought I'd weigh in on this too.

When I hear an advocate for third-party candidate saying "Why vote for only the lesser of two evils?" I'm always a little confused. I want to retort "Because choosing between three or four different evils is so much better?"

And I'm sure to catch grief for that joke. If you are still reading, let me state now that I don't think ANY of the candidates is truly an 'evil' person. I believe all of them have good intentions, truly I do. I think some might be misguided, misinformed or their values do not match my values. The beauty of the system is that I get to choose the candidate that most closely matches me, my values and my view of the world.

However, I'm not sure third-party folks can't get involved too. The two-party system we have isn't set in stone and some day it too may be washed away. The modern flat world allows grass-roots movements to succeed in ways that have never been possible before. On the Internet, 'small' can be big and do big things. Maybe my friend is right and a third-party vote is a wasted vote, but I'm not sure and I wouldn't want to live in a country where it was.

Vote for who YOU want to vote for. Vote for who you think is best. Don't just bet on the horse most likely to win. There is no shame in voting for someone who ends up losing.