1:13 PM: Umm, there were two major candidates...

So, I won't start by telling my liberal bretheren to get a grip, as I doubt it'd help any. I would, however, note that the rampant generalizations I've been reading about the majority of the country -- apparently, this is a nation of hateful bigoted ignorant tyrants; who knew? -- is continuing to make me proud never to have been a member of the Democratic Party. Those analyses also uniformly ignore the fact that there were two people in this race, as if the election were strictly and solely a referendum on Bush. I find it a bit weird that people who granted that they weren't thrilled with Kerry, but couldn't stomach voting for Bush, would fail to understand that others weren't thrilled with Bush, but couldn't stomach voting for Kerry.

I can understand both positions. I had been tending towards gritting my teeth and voting for the Democratic candidate a few months ago. It would have been nice to have been able to do so. I think Bush's presidency has been a disaster, and I don't always go with a third-party candidate. But then the Democratic National Convention came along, and they totally lost me. This was their week to articulate their vision, lay out the plan for four years under Kerry, demonstrate what they had going for them, convince me that Kerry was qualified to lead the country. Instead, I got "Bush sucks, and how could we be worse?" regarding policy, and regarding character, we were expected to embrace Kerry for being a war hero... while ignoring the fact that Kerry got launched on his political career by excoriating the very actions he was now embracing. "Flip-flopper" is too good a term for him. But this was supposed to be okay, because he had an unspecified plan to get us out of Iraq. Well, it worked for Nixon.

To put it baldly: you generally cannot win an election by making it all about the other person. You need to give people a positive reason to rally around you. For the most part, Kerry failed to do that. (And, in my case, it didn't help that most of the very few stands he did take were ones I disagreed with, given my views on the Supreme Court and embryonic stem cell research.) Frankly, he came across to me as a bit slimy, a political opportunist, somebody who could potentially say or do anything... and, unlike Bush (and Edwards), he was kinda low in the personal magnetism department. Granting that one was going to vote for a major-party candidate, I could find no flaw in the point of view expressed by one of my brothers: he didn't like either of them, but better the devil you know. For my part, I'm thrilled that Kerry isn't going to be president, and sorry that Bush will be, but, hey, one out of two ain't bad.

Anyway. My sister has written a much better post on the election, my favorite of those I've read thus far, one which bears no resemblance whatsoever to this one, one that's actually constructive. Give it a look.

3:08 AM: Election Update

Well, Florida's gotta be happy. The spotlight's gonna be on some other state for a change.

On the whole, I'm reasonably happy with the way the day's gone. There was no line at all when I went to vote (for my district; there was a longish line for another district at the same polling place), and it looks like Bush got the totally meaningless popular vote number this time around... which means that if he takes Ohio, we won't have to put up with another four years of the Democrats whining about the electoral college, while if he doesn't, we'll be able to watch them tie themselves into pretzel knots trying to explain why it no longer matters. (Actually, we'll probably get that in either scenario.) So while my first choice was the dream found in my last entry, and my first plausible choice was a swift, decisive win by one side or the other, I'm willing to sit back and enjoy the show. Being able to do so with no qualms is the small silver lining in not liking either candidate, after all.

2:05 AM: A Plague On Both Their Houses!

I guess it's long past time I wrote and posted my 2004 election rant.

There's a bit more than a day left before the polls open, and I'd be one of those undecided voters. Well, I should clarify. I know several people I'm not voting for. I'm not voting for Bush, nor for Kerry, nor Nader, Cobb, or Badnarik. I'm still looking for somebody I am inclined to vote for; as it stands, I'm inclined to throw up my hands and just write in Al Sharpton. One could do worse (see all of the above candidates for relevant examples), and it would certainly shake things up.

There are, of course, intelligent positions for wanting either George Bush or John Kerry to be running the country for the next four years. If you think that either of them is well suited for the job -- if you really and truly want either of them running the country, as opposed to merely preferring one over the other -- then by all means, I encourage you to go ahead and vote for the one of your choice. That's the way the process is supposed to work.

If, on the other hand, you don't think either is an especially good choice, but you're planning to vote for the one of the two whom you dislike the least, I would strenously suggest that you be a part of the solution, rather than perpetuating the problem.

See, I have a dream. It's a flight of fancy, an impossible dream, perhaps, but it's such a nice one. My dream is that the morning after Election Day, the media is all a-flutter about the results of the election. In my dream, it turns out that most voters chose a person he or she thought was best qualified for the job, rather than confining themselves to choosing between the two douchebags offered by the two major parties. Even in my dreams, I'm pragmatic, so it accepts that either Bush or Kerry has won-- frankly, I don't much care which. However, the winner got about 20% of the popular vote, while the next runner-up got, say, 15%. The other 65% of the country split their votes between several third-party candidates... and many more from the primaries, various celebrities, and several voters' mothers.

Why is this a good thing? Sit back and consider the effects of this in the next election. In the absence of my scenario, it doesn't really matter which candidate wins, especially if we end up with another tight race, as seems likely. Neither party is going to feel much incentive to change its ways, to offer better options, to start paying attention to the dissatisfied masses. I'd had some hopes that the Democrats might do so after losing the last election, but they've largely preferred to opt for the delusion that they won. Vote for the lesser of the two evils, and you send the message that all they need to do is be the lesser of the two evils. It ain't worth it.

On the other hand, if a substantial chunk of the country spurns the two most prominent choices, either one or both of the major parties will reinvent itself to meet the clear demand for a change, or one or more new, more viable parties will form, using my hypothetical results as a clear mandate. Unlike the current choice of poisons, this is something that could actually matter, that's worth striving for.

(Lest you think this is entirely a pipe dream, I'll note in passing that this has worked on a smaller scale within the past decade or so: the Republican coup in 1994 can be traced to their paying attention to the 19% of the nation -- myself included -- who voted for Perot. The Contract With America was taken directly from Perot's platform... and while I'm not thrilled with what the GOP has done since, I am still proud of that particular achievement.)

So, once again, if you think Bush is the man for the job, vote for him. If you think Kerry is, vote for him. If you think neither is, don't not vote; that's the worst of all worlds, as it's interpreted by the parties as apathy, rather than disgust. Demonstrate that you care enough to go to the polls and vote for somebody else. Do it for a better America.

Postscript: I'll grant that there are factors this analysis doesn't consider. Heather actually made me reconsider this the other day, noting (in a quote from the New Yorker) that

Bush has said more than once that Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are his favorite justices. In a second Bush term, the Court could be remade in their images.