I completely disagree. If you really believe your party is pure in heart and doing the absolute best for its country, then you can say that. However much of America believes Washington is too corrupt to do any significant change. (I can find a few dozen Sweet Lou blogs as a source if you need). Voting against both parties sends a message that you do not approve of their direction. You can do what you think is the right thing; A vote for Hillary is to ensure there is not a Trump presidency, however at the end of the day, business will go on as usual with Hillary or Trump as president. Nothing will change. 5-10-20 years down the line, each side will be blaming the other party for their failures. Look at Obamacare, you Liberals can not even take responsibility of that turd and still blame the Republicans.
As others posters have noted ballots have already been printed and cast. Most states now won't even allow a new name to be put on the official ballots. The GOP could try a write in campaign but a 50 +DC write in campaign will be very very difficult to orchestrate this late in the game. What coudl be possible is Trump retools his campaign to say that if he wins upon innauguration he will step down for Mike Pence. The biggest factor I believe isn't technical hurdles but that I doubt Trump will step down. Judging from his apology he is digging in for the fight. In some early comments I've heard coming out of his camp is that he's insulating himself from the negative news and instead focussing on messages of support coming in from die hard supporters. While not scientific from what I've seen on social media and the news is that there still are a lot of Trump supporters and they also seem be digging in. A common theme I see being repeated is "I'm more concerned by what Clinton(s) have done than what Trump has said." Leaving aside that Trump has done a lot of horrible things. Also today at Paul Ryan's unity even several Trump supporters showed up to protest. I don't think Trump has any interest in dropping out and neither are most of his posters going to turn against him.
The (my) worst case option is Huxley's brave new world. One in which choice is restricted, not by the government but rather by the governed. It's not that people will not vote for who they want to because they can't but instead because they do not want to.
I don't think Trump's ego will allow him to step aside. I see the chances of him doing it being almost nil, and to tell you the truth, I hope he doesn't. The Republican Party has foisted this nightmare candidate on the American people and they need to own it.
Does it? Did a bunch of people voting for Ross Perot send that message? Did it change anything? Did people voting for Ralph Nader do anything in that regard? Or did it just hurt the interests of the people who voted for him? Voting for a 3rd party makes sense if the candidate has a chance to win. And it makes sense if you don't otherwise care who wins between the people that might actually win. But otherwise, you're doing your own interests a disservice.
3rd party will never win by this logic. Why bother with it? We've had some of the best politicians run for office in the last 20 years, both in congress and politics. Our country is stronger than ever. You are absolutely right. The direction our country is going great. We should not try to change it. Stay with the status quo. The Republicans fumbled the last 2 elections with mediocre candidates. The put an unelectable candidate this year. The DNC decided on Hillary a LONG time ago and made sure she was the nominee. It should REALLY bother you that we did not get to choose our president this year. But its completely irrelevant to you as long as your side stays in office.
3rd Party will win if they produce better candidates than the major parties. Gary Johnson and Jill Stein are certainly not that - neither are remotely qualified to be President. Gary Johnson has essentially admitted it with his "I won't invade countries if I don't know their names" comment. Ross Perot was a bit more qualified - and thus did better - but people liked both Bush and Clinton more. At the time, the parties weren't reviled nearly as much. Voting for a 3rd party candidate because their qualification is that they are a 3rd party is just silly. You should fight to get them to nominate competent candidates. There's nothing that prevents a person from a 3rd party from doing well. If Kasich or Bloomberg or whomever else had run as a Libertarian or Green Party candidate, they'd be on the debate stage and be a legitimate candidate that could win.
This thought process is part of what is wrong with politics. Under no circumstance would I vote for either. I'm not going to pick the lesser evil. If we want to be 100% honest, our individual votes are meaningless. Hillary Clinton is going to win by a huge margin.
That's fine - but then you sort of lose the moral ground to complain if the candidate that represents your interests less than the other get elected and does things you don't like - you didn't do the one simple thing you could to try to help prevent it. (ie, Ralph Nader voters then complaining about the things Bush did.)
But neither represents my interests (both have some policies I like, both have many I disagree with, and neither deserves to be President, but reality is Hillary will be, barring major illness/death). Neither candidate is going to win by one vote (especially one vote in GA). My interest is to either build momentum for a 3rd party in the long run, or to see the other parties shift towards something I could support.
Nadir and Bush is an excellent example, one I've used several times. Someone vote for Nadir in 2000? Guess what - you just helped George W. Bush get elected and contributed to destabilizing the Middle East and bringing an even worse nightmare on the Iraqi people than Saddam, damn near destroying the country in the process. Did it feel good, people? Was that vote worth it? Would Al Gore have been a better president than George Bush? That's an easy question for me to answer, who was against Bush's war in Iraq before it started. I didn't toss my vote into Nadir's dumpster, the dude being a major league hypocrite, a millionaire in a cheap suit carrying a battered briefcase, busy insuring that his own agenda was blown completely off the rails by a man who could care less about what Nadir supposedly stood for.
Fair enough - as I said earlier, if you don't care who wins, then that's a fair reason to vote 3rd party. But as it stands, if Trump does lose 3-4 pts from this whole scandal, Georgia actually could be in play. Also, I don't believe that voting 3rd party builds any momentum for 3rd parties. It didn't from Perot, and it did exactly the opposite with Nader when people realized the damage they did. Momentum for a 3rd party candidate will come when there is a good one to vote for.
Georgia could be in play, but it being in play would just mean the potential for the biggest landslide since Reagan in 84. Perot was an independent when he was on the upswing, rather than in a party. I think that helped prevent there from being 3rd party momentum. Nader received less than 3% of the vote. Hard to build momentum off of that. There are so many Republicans that have become disillusioned by the party, and particularly Trump, that this is the time to strike. Most likely the Republicans move to squash the Libertarian party back to nothing, and succeed, but we have to bet on the chance for change. We shouldn't be content with what we have now. The major parties want you to focus on the spoiler aspect because they want your vote if they are on the fence. They don't want a 3rd party to threaten their long-term dominance.
I think is way too simplistic. I care about spoiler aspect because, in 4 years, chances are we will have a new President regardless of who wins this election. But the judges they put in place, the way they handle taxes, Obamacare, etc will live long after their Presidency. 4 years of Trump - and the accompanying generation of a right-leaning USSC, etc - or the alternative of a left-leaning USSC, is a very good positive reason for me to want Hillary in office. Politics is not just a game - who is President over the next 4 years actually matters and makes a huge impact on everyone's lives. I find it hard to believe you are completely ambivalent about the two possible paths the country takes, but I also am not you so I'm not in a position to judge that. But for me, who wins actually does matter. So it's not about being a spoiler - it's about voting for what I think is the best path forward for the country. And throwing my vote to a fairly incompetent 3rd party candidate just out of protest seems ridiculous. If I actually thought the 3rd party guy could (A) win and (B) was a viable leader, it would be different. And I fully believe if (B) was true, then (A) would be also. The focus for these parties should be on nominating non-crazy people.
GOP should do it (write in campaign) anyway because it's not about winning this fall it's about rebuilding. They've already lost and the sooner they start rebuilding the better it is for them. The faster (now) they can get rid of (excommunicated from the party) the Trump vote the better. If they do it right they have time to replace them with the growing minority and make up some number loss. Others will stay loyal to the GOP so they don't have to worry about them. Just have to replace the racists, bigot portion of the GOP and they can be relevant again.
Third party candidates matter when one of the two major parties is falling apart. They can then consume the old party and emerge as something a little different. That might be the dynamic in 2020, but for now, Gary Johnson ain't no Abraham Lincoln.
The Senate will flip. The only thing left is the House and the margin. Can Hillary get above 350? 400 seems impossible and would require Louisiana, Arkansas, and another state like SC or Idaho and Utah. However, 350 is doable and if she gets close or above, the House is definitely in play. Especially considering the Dem money is making the transition from the presidential race to the Senate and House races. That said, I'm wondering about the reverse Doug Wilder effect where polls were higher than his actual vote because people didn't want to say they were voting against a black guy. I'm thinking there are folks out there who will vote for Trump but never admit to it.
People talked about this during the primaries, but the results never showed it. His results were generally in line with his polling. His supporters generally seem pretty proud to support him, I guess?
