Back on Ka Leo
After so long, my stuff is finally printed on Ka Leo.
My latest editorial discusses the alternatives to voting Bush or Kerry.
http://www.kaleo.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/10/27/417f50257bbbd
Third party candidates offer choices
Polarized voting between Kerry and Bush sideline alternative candidates, with help from mass media
Pablo WegesendOctober 27, 2004
By the time you are reading this editorial, all three of the presidential debates for the 2004 election will have finished. Of course, those debates involved only Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry and Republican incumbent President Bush. Because of this, many people get the wrong impression these two are the only two candidates running for president.
There are others running for president.
There is Ralph Nader, who is running as an independent. His claim to fame is his battle with big corporations. He ran for president in 2000 with the Green Party. Nader made many democrats angry because he supposedly took votes away from then Democratic nominee Al Gore.
The current Green Party nominee is David Cobb, another anti-corporate lawyer. Like Nader, Cobb also has a far-left agenda. Cobb and Nader think the Democrats aren't liberal enough on foreign policy, environment, civil liberties and economics.
The Libertarian Party has Michael Badnarik. He is antiwar, wants to privatize many government services, wants to legalize marijuana, and wants a bigger tax reduction than Bush. He believes the federal government should stay out of the abortion and gay marriage issues.
Republicans fear that the Libertarians take away potential voters worried about taxes, gun control and government bureaucracies. But the libertarians also out-liberalize the Democrats on the military draft, drug legalization and opposition to the Patriot Act.
The Constitution Party has Michael Peroutka. Peroutka is the far-right alternative to the Republicans. He thinks that Bush is too liberal on the federal deficit and immigration. He also dislikes the Patriot Act and thinks that Bush isn't vocal enough against abortion, homosexuality and secularization of public schools.
We have all these other choices and more; however, the media is next to silent on the so-called "third parties." They pretend they don't exist. They pretend that all of America is totally aligned with either Kerry or Bush. That is impossible in a nation of 280 million.
Yet, there are political pundits who consider undecided voters as "stupid," never mind that many people are conflicted between voting for a lesser-known candidate or voting for the "lesser of two evils." Many, like me, may agree with Bush on certain subjects but agree with Kerry on others. We came to that conclusion through an enormous amount of time spent reading newspapers, searching the Internet and watching the news. Yet these pundits call millions of us "stupid" just because we refuse to totally align ourselves with the two over-publicized candidates? These mega-partisan pundits are acting stupid by implying that one must totally agree with Bush or Kerry.
Those of us who have the nerve to vote for a lesser-known candidate are demonized for wasting our votes. The partisan pundits blame third parties for taking away votes their parties are supposedly entitled to.
In 2000, the Democrats demonized Nader for taking away potential Gore votes. Notice that the pro-democrat pundits didn't even bother to encourage Gore to explain why his ideas are better than Nader's. It's as if they're not even confident in Gore being a better candidate issue-wise. It is ironic that the Democratic Party claims to be for the little man, yet they demonize smaller parties for taking away votes.
The Republicans are also guilty of the same thing. It is ironic that the Republican Party claims to be against the entitlement mentality, yet they criticize the Reform, Libertarian and Constitution parties for "taking away votes" from Republicans. As if Republicans are entitled to power. The republicans claim to be for personal responsibility, but in reality blame others for their loses. The Republicans claim to be for the free market, but they aren't willing to effectively market their ideas.
It is this arrogance of the two big parties plus the media's refusal to cover minor parties that is reducing voter turnout. In 2000, in the United States, only half of those eligible to vote actually voted.
Yet, in 1998, in Minnesota, 70 percent of those eligible actually voted. Why? Because in that year, Jesse Ventura was running for governor of Minnesota. Ventura was neither a Democrat nor a Republican. He was less for government bureaucracy, pro-privatization, pro-choice, and pro-gun. He even took the risky positions of being for legalizing prostitution, marijuana and same-sex marriage. With all that, he was able to defeat the two major parties. Plus, being a former pro-wrestler didn't hurt.
Imagine someone like that running for president. I think someone like that can win the presidency.
As for Ventura, he recently stated he wouldn't vote for Kerry or Bush.
As for me, I like Bush for being tough on Islamic terrorists and being pro-immigration; however, Bush is wrong when using the federal government to restrict abortion, same-sex marriage and medical marijuana.
As for Kerry, I agree with him on abortion, civil unions and being tough on al Qaeda; however, Kerry was too inconsistent on too many issues throughout his campaign.
In my opinion, the best minor candidate is the already-mentioned Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian Party. I agree with him on medical marijuana, abortion, same-sex marriage, guns and the draft. I hope he takes a gradual approach to privatizing certain government services. Going too fast on that can be a disaster; however, he doesn't seem tough enough to take on Islamic terrorists.
Hopefully, someone can reason with me on which candidate to vote for on Nov.2
