my indecision 2010

[mellowtigger]

The mid-term elections start tomorrow morning.  I still can't decide who will win my vote.  It probably doesn't help that I have a slight fever.  (I even stayed home from work today to rest.)  Even ignoring all of the other races, consider my indecision just for the candidate for Minnesota state governor.  We have candidates from 7 different political parties!

Let start by eliminating:

• bigots who delay my civil rights: Republican (homophobes "are good people") and Independence ("more debate is needed");
• opportunists who use private wealth to buy their way into politics: the Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate who wouldn't accept his own party's endorsement of a different candidate during the primary; and
• ideologues who rant about their personal issues: Resource (AmerIndians are bad) and Grassroots (legalize marijuana).

I'm still left with 2 parties: Green and Ecology Democracy.  Notice the environmental theme in both of them?  Yay, me!  I have actual choices this year!  Bonus points go to each candidate for different reasons.

Green candidate Farheen Hakeem (pictured here) is a Muslim woman running for state governor who favors GLBT equality!  How's that for progressive?  Stereotypes are clearly inappropriate as hard rules.

Ecology Democracy candidate Ken Pentel (formerly of the Green party himself) mentions the "Infinite growth economy on a finite resource base" which should be familiar language to anyone reading my rants on the necessary crash caused by exponential growth.

I would vote Ecology Democracy on this familiarity alone... except that I wish I understood why he isn't running under the Green banner this year.  Did he throw a tantrum like the Democrat who failed to get his party's endorsement?  For what it's worth, Ken Pentel has the endorsement of Ralph Nader.  If I can find the reason why he split from the Green party, Ken Pentel can easily win my vote tomorrow morning. Otherwise, I may stick with the Green party just for its long familiarity in politics.

And I still have 20 other races to investigate (with 76 candidates).  *sigh*  Minnesotans are certainly involved in their political system!

Regarding my icon for this post... I still made the correct decision.  Yes, I'm disappointed with some of the results.  The main choices in 2008, however, were between Mr. hope-and-change or Mr. the-fundamentals-of-the-economy-are-strong.  I clearly made the right choice about who can intelligently recognize and address the nation's economic crisis.  Faced with the same candidates today, then I'd make the same choice again, regardless of any other disappointments I feel.

Comments

[dodecadragon.livejournal.com]

So does the notion of not wanting someone to take the office factor into your decision at all?

I for one do not want Emmer to win (he who supports those who thinks it's morally right to murder me because of who I happen to be), therefore I plan to vote for the candidate who is closest to him in the polls. Dayton, even though I don't want him either. Yes, the lesser of two evils, but in this case I think the lesser is like a "white lie" vs. a "murderous scumbag" and I'll take the "white lie".

Now if only we had Instant Runoff Voting for state offices, which would allow for folk to vote their conscious first and be pragmatic second. But we don't, and I don't think this election can afford to take any chances of letting the mindset that Emmer represents to get into office.

[mellowtigger]

The way our system was designed, voters are supposed to elect representatives that they want. Once those elected representatives reach Congress, the representatives are supposed to argue and compromise, freeing the people from that tiring and complicated responsibility.

Something is badly broken if the people have to compromise in order to elect representatives who are themselves ideologues incapable of agreeing to any statement outside of their narrow special interest. That's where we're at, I agree.

Instant Runoff Voting is the only easily available cure that I see for this problem. Since it is equivalent to a series of different elections (but all held at the same time without intervening political review and commentary), it becomes impossible(?) for pundits to manufacture sentiment against any particular interest.

Psychology students learn how to devise surveys that measure and guard against intentional misrepresentation of self on a survey. Our voting system should be at least as robust as that. Instant Runoff Voting seems the best self-correcting change that we can make to the system to get it back to its original intent: voting for candidates.

Meanwhile, though, I don't want to participate in the flawed version of the American election system. I'll continue to vote for who I want, rather than defensively in some morose game of Political Chess. I accept the consequences of my actions. The sooner the fault in the system becomes obvious to everyone, the sooner we can collectively repair it.