I am Libertarian, hear me rant!

No sports story has drawn my attention today. This probably has something to do with the fact that the sports media has descended on the Super Bowl in force, and is determined to bring me such critical stories as the chick from the Spanish TV station who showed up at Media Day in a wedding dress of sorts and proposed to Tom Brady (which has to be near the top of the list of things you can do to make sure your organization does not get a media credential next year), and the Giants lineman who once castrated lambs with his teeth. So, as a result, you're going to get a rare political rant from me.

I am registered as a Republican, but as I've said before, I lean more Libertarian. In any election discussion, I have been very open about the fact that I have no intention of voting for the Republican nominee for president just because they are the Republican nominee. If the Republicans nominate someone I don't believe in, I'll find a 3rd party candidate I do believe in and vote for that person.

As you might expect, this position often draws a slew of objections from my Republican-type friends. Well, mainly just the same objection over and over again: "You're going to help get Hillary elected!" And on the most basic, practical level, I suppose that is very much true, given that no 3rd party candidate in this election stands a chance of defeating the Democratic nominee.

And yet, there's a bigger picture here that goes beyond the outcome of a single election, one that I didn't see for myself until just a few years ago. People seem to confuse political party affiliation with political ideology. Now, it's clear that at least, on some level, party affiliation reflects ideology, but the fact of the matter is that political parties exist to win elections, not to champion a particular ideology. Individuals certainly have their principles and ideologies, but on the grander scale, parties are only beholden to an ideology to the extent that it offers them the best chance to maintain power. That fact demonstrates the fallacy of continuing to line up to vote for "your" party's nominee, even if you don't particularly like person. "Your" party doesn't care that you don't like their nominee, as long as you'll keep showing up to vote for them. So those who continually grumble about the direction the party is going, while consistently voting for nominees they don't like, are only serving to reinforce that direction. For instance, if the Republicans know that core conservatives will vote for their nominee as long as they are at least marginally better than the Democrat, why would they put up a true conservative who would likely drive away moderates. Better to put up a more moderate candidate.

The objection to this line of thinking is that parties (in general) select their nominees via primaries, and therefore the voters make that choice. That's true, and yet at the same time, the overall party machinery continues to hold a significant amount of sway in those processes, and the party machinery is ALWAYS going to be at work on behalf of a candidate that they feel is the most electable in a general election. Never was this sort of practice more clear to me than a few years back when Senator Arlen Specter faced a heated primary battle against Pat Toomey, a much more conservative opponent. President Bush stumped rather heavily on behalf of Specter, whose votes generally go against the President 2/3 (or more) of the time.

Against that reality, the only way to keep the party from veering completely to the middle is to make it clear that the conservative wing of the party is not a locked in vote. If the party knows that making a serious play for the moderates will result in a large portion of the base either voting 3rd party, or just staying home, they'll adjust their strategy accordingly.

I've been told a number of times that I'll be throwing my vote away, but let's really examine what's going on here. If you and I both dislike "our" party's nominee, we have 2 choices. We can vote for a candidate we don't believe in but who stands a chance of beating the other major party's nominee. Or, we can vote for a candidate that we do believe in. From my perspective, if you do the former while I do the latter, one of us has thrown our vote away, and it isn't me. The fact that the average American believes that I am the one throwing my vote away in that scenario is one of the biggest problems of our political process. Grumbling and groaning about a particular candidate and then lining up to vote for them is just enabling the party to move in the direction you don't want it to move.

If the Libertarians or another conservative 3rd party were to siphon off 5% of the vote nationally, the Republican party would be falling over itself to try and win them back. The problem is that we've got such a short view of the political process, one that can't see past the upcoming election. In terms of this individual election, yeah, I should probably suck it up and vote for the Republican nominee. But I refuse to continue contributing to ongoing major defeat for an increased shot at a minor short term victory. That's just where I'm at these days.