I'm going tomorrow to vote in my home state of Maryland. Though I am a bit surprised to find that my post-super Tuesday election will actually mean something, I am a little disappointed with the prospects of my impending action. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty excited about the man (or woman) who I am actually going to vote for, and the prospect of having a black or female candidate. I would not leave the house if I did not think either of those people could do the job. I probably would not leave the house either if the election had been over a week ago. But I'm disappointed with the fact that Dennis Kucinich will not be a viable option.
Yes, I am aware of the many objections, to varying degrees of validity, people have to Kucinich. He's not by any means your typical candidate. He has some "unpopular" ideas, or at least the media downplays their popularity. He doesn't have a whole lot of stage presence. He ran into some snags in the 70s with public utilities and the mafia in the city of Cleveland. He's not "electable," whatever the hell that means. But damn it, he's the only candidate who SAID ANYTHING. Watching debates with him was like watching a room full of employees try to convince their boss that they shouldn't be fired, but he was obviously the only one who was doing any work and had any idea what was going on. The remaining candidates have built platforms on vague promises to "help out the middle class" or "cut taxes" or "make health care more accessible." Don't even get me started on candidates who support "change" as a campaign issue. Kucinich spoke about concrete issues. He was the only one who supported a single payer health care system. He was the only presidential candidate (other than Obama, who was not yet in office) who did not vote for the war. To be fair, he doesn't have millions of dollars of private interest money funding his campaign, thus shaping his opinions. If only that were the case for every candidate.
Four years ago, Kucinich didn't drop out of the race until only a few days before the convention. I believe he was trying to make a point on how we decide the president. Typically, we vote for the most electable candidate in the primaries instead of voting for who we think will do the best job. Then, we wind up with a candidate in the general election who we don't really like, and vote for him because he's "the lesser of two evils." Kucinich didn't see the fact that he had no chance of winning as a reason to drop out of the race. If he had, his campaign would have ended 4 months before the first primary. But he wanted to make a point that voting shouldn't be about who can win the race, but that the voter should have an option to vote for someone who represents their viewpoints. Any less than expecting one to vote their heart goes against the principles of a democracy "by the people, for the people." Besides, do you really win anything if you vote for a candidate you don't really like just because you think they're more likely to win? Not unless you contributed thousands of dollars to their campaign.
I was expecting my only reason to go out to the polls to be in order to show my support for a candidate who actually says something. He would have gotten me out of the house and down to the polls even if the race had been over after New Hampshire. Maybe he dropped out because he was not appalled by the other choices for a change. Or maybe he didn't want to steal votes from a candidate who he stands behind. But either way, tomorrow when I vote, I can choose to throw my vote away on someone who dropped out three weeks ago (who for some reason is still on the ballot) or throw my vote away on someone who I just kinda, sorta like. At least it's not John Kerry.
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"Electability" is a really tough issue. I agree entirely that voting for the person who you think can win over the person who you actually like is dishonest and ultimately hurts the quality of our democracy. Unfortunately, in a winner-take-all system, your vote really is wasted unless the candidate has at least some chance of winning. I admire the principled stand that it is, but in the end Ralph Nader only picked up a few percent in 2000. He's not in office; George W is. With a little reform of our voting system to allow people to chose their preferences in order and allot points accordingly, I'd be with you 100% - with our system, though, I have to hedge my bet.
In primaries, though, I see no reason why people shouldn't vote for who they believe in. Primaries in many ways have nothing to do with electability: they are a referendum on which candidate in each political party is judged most worthy to serve by the electorate. If you're not going to vote for who you believe in at this stage, then you're never going to do it. It's sad to me that some really promising candidates (I'm thinking of Edwards, Biden, Dodd and, yes, Kucinich) dropped out before Super Tuesday. They let the opinions of Iowans, New Hampshirites, and South Carlinians speak for everybody in the country. And I've noticed a big shift in the debate since these folks left the race: it's a lot less substantive and a lot more about the personalities of Hillary and Obama and whether they can beat McCain. The race has become a matter of political strategy not a discussion of the issues. A vote for Kucinich, even though he might not get a lot of the vote, reinforces the positions he stands for and keeps his contribution of the debate alive. Edwards was only getting in the teens for the last couple weeks of the January primaries but this level of success still allowed him to push his pet issues, and everyone benefited as a result.
Good points, Zach. I just want to take a moment to defend the green party in 2000. Ralph Nader takes a whole lot of crap for allegedly costing Gore the election and putting Dubya in office. This is a ridiculous notion, considering the fact that Al Gore got the majority of the vote. But I'm not even trying to scratch the surface of a discussion about America's electoral system.
It is my belief that Nader has been scapegoated in place of harder to prove but equally palpable factors that influenced the election. What about the confusing ballots in Dade county? The removal of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls? Or the age-old tradition of preventing African Americans from voting? These factors would have all exerted enough influence to have swayed the election in the opposite direction.
Besides, the idea that the votes that went to Nader would have automatically gone to Gore is fundamentally flawed. Many of the people who cast ballots for Nader would simply have stayed home on election day had they not had the choice.
In 2004, John Kerry got more votes than Al Gore did in 2000. And Dubya (allegedly) got more votes in 2004 than all of them. People are becoming more involved than before. This year's primaries are the most encouraging in years. Still, some 40% of Americans didn't have a candidate who spoke to them enough to bother voting. Al Gore could have easily defeated Bush in Florida, and prevented everyone from throwing around a bunch of lame excuses for why Bush won, had he really spoken to the part of America that is disenfranchised enough to inspire them to vote. It's a sad reality when a democratic candidate can't inspire voters more than George W. Bush.
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