Anybody know how that works? Does it involve a pitchfork?

I still think Mitt Romney will ultimately end up as their most likely choice – maybe 80% sure or so of that.

What are your thoughts on Romney – not too bad maybe for a Republican?

I was thinking not but now I am not sure. And, in fact, one can never be sure.

So, get all passive aggressive at Obama, maybe you get Gingrich.

But more likely you’d get Mitt Romney who won’t be all that bad, from what I gather, right?

Do people really seriously think Gingrich will end up being the Republican party candidate and that his current spell of leading the nomination race in a very weak and bad field is going to last more than a short time?

Even if Gingrich does win the Republican nomination for 2012 which is a very long way from being decided from what I understand of US politics (& sure I could be wrong & am not an expert here.) then it seems highly unlikely from what I’ve heard and read that he could defeat Obama for the Presidency.

Not that it makes Gingrichs comment here any less appalling mind you.

Even if the wingnut replacement is even worse (which he almost certainly will be) at least the next Democratic contender might actually be more liberal. That is, if there even is a country left for him to be president of.

But ask yourselves this: What has the historical Democratic response to losses been? Moving more to the left or more to the right?

The only way you’re going to achieve anything positive is to get involved at “grass roots” level by promoting local candidates, or joining a larger movement like Occupy. Sitting on your lazy asses on election day is going to achieve sweet fuck-all.

Meanwhile, I’m living here in Not-USA, where I don’t even have a vote in your elections, yet I’ll still indirectly suffer the consequences of your actions. Thanks a fucking lot!

It seems that those taking this position don’t care or understand that, for some people, their vote must be earned, not given by default due to the candidate who happens to be the less poor choice of the potential winners. Ballots contain more than two Presidential candidates, and if the two major candidates are both awful, voting for either is morally questionable at best.

You can list all the peripheral accomplishments you like; when a presidential candidate–incumbent or no–claims to have the right to unilaterally order the killing of American citizens they lose my vote. Period. Full stop. There will not and should not be any compromise on the issue of Presidentially decreed murder. I don’t care who the other ‘major party’ guy is because neither will I vote for them if they should also support such a position.

I vote my conscience, not my fears.

Casting a ballot for heinous people because you’re afraid that a worse person might come along is on some level understandable, although I would strongly disagree that such is the right or moral course of action. Excoriating others, however, for supporting a candidate that they think will best represent their views even if said candidate is not polling highly is simply brutish behavior.

If Obama loses and someone worse is inaugurated next January, it won’t be because of me or those like me, and I won’t have voted for any of those clowns either. It will ultimately be because of Obama’s abject failure at following through with his important promises and the utter devastation of civil rights that has occurred under the watch his administration–often with his full support.

The Democratic candidate in the 2012 presidential election, among his numerous other civil liberties disgraces, ordered and carried out the murder of an American citizen far from any battlefield and outside of any legal process. Vote for more of that because the the other candidate I won’t vote for might be worse? Never. To do so would make me complicit in those morally reprehensible acts.

A critical mass will eventually arise and throw out or reshape one of the current parties (Likely the Rs, as they’re already quite fragmented), much in the same way that the Whigs supplanted the Federalists with the arrival of the 2nd Party System and the Republicans the Whigs in the 3rd Party System. Hopefully this happens in 2012. But until people like Brian, Greg and their ilk abandon the notion that a candidate deserves your vote simply because he’s got a shot at winning and he’s not the worst guy in the race that won’t happen. This critical mass never arrives instantaneously, of course; it requires people at the fore of the movement unafraid to tack against the prevailing winds. Those people gain support, and as that support grows, so do the chances for electoral success. But it’s an uphill battle because those people are fighting against not only their true opposition in people who hold opposing ideological viewpoints, but also the opposition of their ideological comrades who are so fearful of losing their tenuous grip on the tattered dingy they’re clinging to they can’t see that if they let go and swim just a bit there’s a much better boat out there. In reality, you guys are just as responsible for this mess, if not more so, as the people who refuse to vote for the corporatist authoritarian thug you’re so desperately hanging onto.

Two points I would like to make. The first is that my vote in particular actually does not matter, since I live in Georgia, which is guaranteed to go to the Republican candidate in 2012 regardless of what I do. As a result, I am free to vote for whomever I like since our broken system makes my vote null and void in the first place.

The second point I’d like to make is that, under your rules, nothing will ever change. If the choice is continually framed as “well, you have these two options and only these two options”, the entire political process devolves into mere tribalism. Both parties have long since ceased to run on issues; now the Republicans run on “we’re more American than they are” (while running the actual Constitution through a shredder) while the Democrats run on “at least we’re not them because OMG THEY HATE US ALL AND ARE GOING TO DESTROY THE COUNTRY!!!!!!” Meanwhile, both parties are completely beholden to Wall Street, fear, and the military-industrial complex, but nobody cares because they get to feel good that they are supporting their favorite tribe.

My vote is not moral or good. My vote is not Democratic, Republican, Green, Socialist, Reform, American Constitution Party, or People’s Front of Judea. My vote is mine, and I intend to cast it after careful consideration of the options and the actual issues at hand, not a bunch of tribal bullshit and fearmongering that does nothing but divide the country in two.

Also, it’s not Nader’s fault we got Bush in 2000. It’s the fault of our rather ridiculous Electoral College system that has far outlived its original usefulness …

… a system which hasn’t changed since the 2000 election and therefore is still in play for the 2012 election. If enough people like you either refrain from voting altogether or throw away their vote on some symbolic candidate – who cannot win – syphoning off (partially sane and moral) Dem electoral college votes from your state has the net effect of giving the (insane and totally uncontrollable) ReThug candidate enough states to win.

Since that’s what you’ve stated you’re going to do, we know at least one person to blame when Newt starts arresting US judges: you.

You don’t have a real choice between Obama, some ReThug, and some other as-yet-to-be-named better contestant. In the real world, the world all of us live in, the world with a US Electoral College system, you have the choice between the two parties, one of which is destroying some things which are very important to us, the other of which intends to destroy every thing which is important to us. Pretending that you can sit on your morals and throw your vote away in a spiteful gesture only goes towards hitting all of us with the destroy-everything option.

Not good. Not moral at all.