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Third Party Throwaway?

I received this email from a friend of mine yesterday, and it's as thoughtful an essay on the importance of your vote November 7th as you will see.  It also has an interesting look at how our candidates treat the voters they want to represent:

Dear Friends,

I have spent a lot of time in recent weeks pondering the purpose and process of casting one's vote for political officials. Given the political turmoil of the last few years, most people have become even more strongly aligned with the political party with which they align themselves, which is neither surprising nor problematic. Yet, it has also become increasingly clear that neither major party has much strong ground on which to stand lately...other than beating the other party. That we find ourselves feeling compelled to vote for our favorite party is also neither surprising nor problematic--unless that party's candidate no longer actually provides us with ample reason to vote for him or her.

My thoughts on this matter derive primarily from two major considerations in the upcoming election: the Minnesota gubernatorial race, and the balance of power in the National Congress.

At risk of sounding overly idealistic, I have come to the conclusion that my vote is best cast for the candidate whose views not only most closely align with my own, but also who is most likely to fulfill the purpose of a representative democracy. Over the course of the last few weeks and months, I have written to almost every candidate for whom I am eligible to vote on November 7, each with a question about their campaign and positions. To a one, every candidate responded, and did so with a response making it clear that they had not even bothered to read what I had read. For example, when asking Mark Kennedy why instituting the Line Item Veto would not be unconstitutional this time around like it was during the Clinton era, his response was, "Thank you for expressing your support for my plan to pass a line item veto...."

Our government was, and is, built as one in which constituents would elect a representative to go to the legislature and construct the laws in the manner that would best suit the interests of those constituents. This is nothing new to anyone. But that we have strayed so far from that model that we now feel compelled to vote for the candidate who is least counter to our values seems to show that we have lost sight of the purpose of electing representatives. This is where my examples come into play.

In Minnesota, our Governor's race is being dominated (not surprisingly) by the major-party candidates, neither of whom seems to be all that compelling of a choice for most people. You may disagree with my simple summaries of the candidates, but the candidates seem to come across as such: Tim Pawlenty is an amazing communicator, but has very little relative framework within which to work outside of his own: an upper-middle class, white male. Mike Hatch offers the obvious foil as a much more progressive and liberal candidate, but he wants to litigate his way through the issues facing a Governor, rather than lead. Neither seems all that concerned with what the constituents actually have to say, most likely because they are too busy being consumed by their own personae.

But there is a viable third candidate in this race: Peter Hutchinson. Yes, Minnesota had a rough time with the last Independent Governor it elected, and Mr. Hutchinson may not be able to pull off a win in this politically polarized climate, but his ideas are good, he is willing to bend and compromise for the greater good, and he is the only candidate for any office that has actually taken the time to listen to little-old-me and actually respond thoughtfully. I think that goes a lot farther in making a candidate worthwhile than just agreeing with me on a few issues.

However, if you are one who is more attracted to a candidate by alignment of viewpoints on issues, I still have something else to offer. First of all, for the Minnesota races, Minnesota Public Radio has a fantastic tool on their website that allows you to choose your position on a number of issues (as well as how important those issues are to you), and it matches you to the candidates with whom you are most aligned. It can be found at:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/ongoing/select_a_candidate/

(Interestingly, MPR has tallied the numbers of people who have used this tool and their results, and 51% of users have been matched to Peter Hutchinson as their best choice for Governor.)

Secondly, if it is issues with which you are most concerned, then I believe it makes sense to vote for the person with whom you are most closely aligned. That's not a huge jump to make, but most of the news and considerations I have heard from people lately have also revolved around which party will be controlling which offices, not who they actually agree with. It does not really make sense to me to vote based on control of the House or Senate, as if we vote for the best candidates and get the best people in office ( i.e., the people who best represent and listen to their constituents), then we will have the right people there who will be able to get the work done. Voting for someone based on his or her strong commitment to his or her party, on the other hand, guarantees nothing other than that he or she will be concerned with the political pandering that goes with strict party-line voting/promoting/slandering. But that gets us nowhere.

Have we already forgotten where that got Minnesota's legislature in the summer of 2005? Gridlock and a government shutdown. That was an embarrassment to our state and to the political process in general. If we were not so concerned with party lines, that would not have happened.

So to conclude, I would offer that a vote is not only a powerful privilege each of us is given, but it is also the representation of a positive choice made by each of us. Positive, because we vote for someone. Using one's vote to keep another out of office is not only dishonest (because you are not actually in favor of that person for whom you are voting), but it can never produce a situation with which we are pleased. Rather, it can only produce a result with which we are not *as* dissatisfied as we may have otherwise been.

Therefore, I encourage you to be honest with your vote this year. Look for the candidate you would most want in office, not the one who just gets the job done of keeping other people out of office. Personally, I am of the inclination that having more choices and more parties only provides us with better options, but we will never achieve that if we don't vote for those other-party candidates when they deserve our votes. But even if you are not convinced by my third-party leanings, at least consider what it is you are actually voting for when you cast your ballot on November 7th.

G. Martin

November 02, 2006 |

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