Eric Zorn tells us that only Republicans and Democrats should be the recipient of our votes tomorrow. To back up his position, he reminds us that the candidacies of Ross Perot and Ralph Nader helped secure victories for Bill Clinton and George W. Bush respectively. In other words: A victory righteous belongs to one Big Two party candidate was instead unfairly awarded to the OTHER Big Two Party candidate.
Campaigns and primary elections are for unleashing your conscience—for putting your energy and your money behind candidates who best reflect your views and your values.
But when those candidates don’t catch fire and end up having no chance of winning, the citizen with the long view looks to cast a strategic vote in the end that stands a chance of meaning something, rather than a vote that ends up a disregarded symbolic gesture.
Since Illinois doesn’t have instant-runoff voting or other ways to better gauge voter sentiment, you must either end up casting your ballot for the winner or end up enabling his or her victory by withholding support from the runner-up.
Will all due respect, Eric, that is such crap.
My vote will mean “something” because it means that I’ve expressed my opinion that neither Blago or JBT should be governor, and that the Big Two are wise to think twice about running corrupt party hacks next time. From a practical perspective, every vote for Whitney and Constitution Party candidate Randy Stufflebeam makes it easier for these two parties to get on the ballot without having to jump through hoops. Because Tim Nieukirk and Libertarian Party member Mark McCoy are write-in candidates, their votes accomplish nothing toward ballot reform — except perhaps symbolically.
Too bad the Libertarian Party decided to take it’s ball and go home this year. As the libertarian-minded science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein once wrote: “Of course the game is rigged. Don’t let that stop you–if you don’t play, you can’t win.” But the LP decided to implode this year and didn’t field a candidate, thus missing out on all the fun as swell as a perfect chance to pick up enough disenfranchised GOPers to earn a space in next year’s ballot without having to get all those signatures.
The elections are NOT parties thrown by the Republicans and Democrats at which we non party members are allowed to attend as long as we play by rules established by the parties. The Constitution which gives us free elections was drafted before either of these two organizations existed. The U.S. Constitution says that elections must be free and that includes ballot access. There is NOTHING limiting office holders to members of these two parties, any more than it limits office holders to white, male landowners.
Vote for who the Hell ever you want to and be proud.
Shame on Eric Zorn for telling his readers otherwise.
Tags: ballot access, Chicago Tribune, Eric Zorn
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
Billy, the problem here is simple. Whitney is not truly a legitimate candidate. He is a throw-in for a marginal “party,” and is actually sort of weird. If by some weird accident he was elected, he would hit a huge brick wall in the state from both sides of the aisle. Those are the facts.
Again, we can all put on our Pollyanna curls, and go skipping to La-La Land, but unless it is a VIABLE candidate in the third party, it is a wasted vote. I don’t believe that a law professor without any political office experience, or a former Marine with a Bible clipped on this belt are REALLY viable candidates.
That being said, vote away.
Well, my hair is curly, but it’s not blonde.
The Green Party is not a “marginal” party. As a matter of fact, the IL Green Party, and those in all the other states, are a part of the International Green Party. There are Green parties in European Union state that hold a significant portion of their parliaments/senates, etc. The international Green Party has 4 basic pillars that are common to every single green party. Visit http://www.ilgp.org to learn something!
Dems and Repugs certainly aren’t international, so if you look at it from a populist perspective, the Green Party has it all over D/Rs.
Yeah, but where in the world does the Green Party rack up enough votes to even come CLOSE to winning? And, I’m just guessing here, but my bet is that virtually every Green Party candidate wears wire-rims, has surfed on whales, and has never held public office.
I don’t care how many folks carry the Green Card… it is a marginal party, because it’s an extremely marginal segment of the population that is a member, or votes for it.
Teddy Roosevelt was a viable third party candidate. Jim Edgar would be a viable third party candidate. A whale surfer with wire rims and patches on the elbows of his sport jacket, is NOT, no matter how many Green Cards he/she might own.
Oh, and since nobody comes to visit at my blog space, I want to post this one final tidbit to try and get folks to vote for Bill Spears. Even though it does not belong under this heading, that’s just fine, cause I pay no mind to perameters anyways.
From Pasghetti Place:
“I can’t believe the Aaron Schock commercial showing the folks down at the Galena Park Home along Interstate 29. Schock is portrayed as the Wonder Boy who championed an $800,000.00 STUDY as to the problems along Interstate 29 in Peoria Heights and Peoria.
Guess what? I can do a study for $5.00 and tell you what the problem(s) is/are. Number one… there are NO stop lights along the damned thing ANYWHERE. Number two… the speed limit is too damned high. Number three… the Illinois State Police avoid it like it’s the Plague.
Now, I read that the estimated cost of putting a fifth lane along Galena Road is 10 MILLION BUCKS. So, we taxpayers not only pay for the STUDY of $800,000.00, but the chances of this fifth lane ever being put in is about NIL. Won’t happen. Yet, here is Wonder Boy acting like he’s putting the fifth lane in himself, over Christmas Break, and there’s the old folks nodding their heads like they’ll be helping him wheelbarrow the rocks out.
This makes me want to puke. All I read about was the Mayor of Peoria Heights wanting a stop light down there, and lowering the speed limit, and IDOT saying “no,” cause apparently they want a few more injuries and deaths down there… just for the fun of it.
Now, it’s a political fun-day for Wonder Boy. He is so slick that rain beads on him. PLEASE don’t vote for Schock. PLEASE.”
Sincerely, Prego Man
Prego Man – you just do not GET it – the idea of voting is not to vote for a winner but to express your political opinion. If Whitney and the Green Party support an ideology that you agree with, vote for them. If there is suffiecint support for a thrid party or independant candidate, the mainstream parties will either ’see the light’ and shift their focus or perish.
How many Whig candidates dis you see on the ballot, today?
Anon, you ain’t gettin’ it, neither. I have nothing against a Green Party, a Birthday Party, or a Kegger Party candidate getting the vote… I just think it’s a wasted one when the candidate for whatever party is not a viable one. Now, you may disagree with me as to what constitutes “viable,” but I don’t think that Whitney is really Governor material, in any sense of the word.
That’s my opinion, and I is gonna keep it… nyah nyah nyah.
I think it is the voters that determine who is “viable” and who is not.
besides, I often think we need folks with LESS “political experience” in office and nore MORE.
Elected office, now-a-days, is more about being RE-elected than serving the public.
Well, whatever, ya know…
Just vote for Bill Spears, and all will be well with the world.
Mouse: “I think it is the voters that determine who is “viable” and who is not.”
EXACTLY.
What Zorn proposes is a just a circle jerk.
1. Don’t vote for third party candidates because they are not viable.
2. Third Party candidates are not viable because no one votes for them.
3. So why not vote for them and help make them viable? Because they are not viable NOW.
4. Don’t vote for Third Parties just because you’re ticked at the first and second parties.
5. Make certain that the actual candidate is TRULY viable. In other words, he/she should have a definitive track record of public service; ability to lead and work with others; have a solid working knowledge of government at the level he/she is aspiring to, etc. Don’t vote for he/she simply because he/she is NOT someone else… vote for he/she being able to DO the job if he/she could truly win.
6. A protest vote is nothing more than that… a protest vote. It might make you feel better when you take a shower that night, but in the meantime, you really did not partake in the true ELECTION.
7. The lesser of three evils sounds good on paper… but if that lesser than three evils would lead to utter chaos if he/she were actually elected, then you have created a fourth, more costly, evil.
8. Vote for Bill Spears.
Prego Man sez: “Don’t vote for Third Parties just because you’re ticked at the first and second parties.”
I sez: I will agree with you about that.
Prego Man also sez: “Vote for Bill Spears. ”
I sez: Shut up already. We got the point.
Third party candidates are just as viable as any other party. Ask the dem. and rep. candidates that lost to Jesse Ventura if the Reform Party is viable or not. Stop being brainwashed by the mainstream power parties and think outside your little sphere of ideological pap. I hope Whitney gets 20 percent and the Greens have easier ballot access; then perhaps they can carry some momentum into building a legitimate party movement in this state.
Should have ran Ditka…
There’s a deeper question here: Why are the Democratic and Republican candidates so bad? Democrat and Republican voters by and large hate their choices for governor. How can that be? Is it because really good candidates aren’t choosing to run anymore? Or are political machines keeping good candidates out? Or is it all due to voter apathy?
1. Qualified candiates don’t wnt to take the pay cut.
2. Qualified candindates don’t want their names dragged through the muck.
3. Qualified candidates don’t want every little misdeed int heir past magnified.
You know, Cal Skinner had more Springfield experience than Jim Ryan and Rod Blagojevich combined in 2002. 16 years as a State Rep. and more years in budget offices. Yet, I bet prego man was (or would) probably saying the same thing about him.
Something else to consider. The Republican Party was not the first or only anti-slavery party while it was still practiced. They just got sick of losing votes to the “third”, anti-slavery parties and changed their ways. If it weren’t for brave people shunning the type of logic prego man is using and voting for “third” parties it may have been another 20 or so years and another generation of human beings in captivity. The same thing happened with women’s right to vote and be full citizens. “Third” parties led the charge and then the Rs and Ds followed.
Well, now it is time for someone to lead the charge against corruption and patronage and campaign coffer kickbacks and abuse of power. A vote for Topinka or Blagojevich ensures us all that we will have at least four more years of that type of government leadership. A vote for Topinka or Blago is the wasted vote because it changes nothing.
Jeff Trigg sez: “A vote for Topinka or Blago is the wasted vote because it changes nothing.”
I sez: That would have been a powerful slogan – even if it was JBT using it against Blago.