POLL: Are you considering not voting this election to send a message?

Are you considering not voting this election to send a message?

(I find the poll feature useful to get a sense of actual DU attitudes.)

Even if I was dead.

and, I consider voting a responsibility that must be fulfilled not a privilege to be tossed away in a hissyfit.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

:kick: :thumbsup:

It's already going to be the case that when Dems lose it's going to be because they were "too far left" or "too liberal". So the more they lose the more this is the erroneous message that will be hammered home.

If I thought they would get the actual message, being that if you lose the base you lose elections and if you act like republicans, then people will vote for the real thing then I'd bother with sending a message.

However, this doesn't mean that I don't think each and every one of them with the exception of manybe 3 or 4 at most have been miserable failures as democrats and squandered an incredible opportunity in a pretty obscene way.

but I'm not stupid.

mark

would be a vote for Ron Paul (because he ironically is anti-war), and it also hurts the area repubs. Dems don't really have a chance down here.

I will be voting though, straight dem, in hopes of getting some better local people in place.

I can't stay home. My governor choices are lousy, but I will not let an extremist Rep win if I can help. Even though the state House and Senate races have the same person on both tickets, I will not stay home.

Perhaps that is not your intent - you only ask for responses to the send a message idea, which is not necessarily the same thing as endorsing it.

People tune electoral politics out when it tunes them out.

Some people who are highly invested in partisan politics get defensive about that and try to impute selfishness as the reason for the widespread phenomenon of "voter apathy". Then when citizens ask why should I vote? they are treated to more abusive insinuations that the only reason that they would refrain from voting is out of childish spite. Oh, "sending a message" are we? Very nice.

Maybe "voter apathy" is a predictable and healthy response to a system that views the lot of the vast majority with savage indifference? The alternatives may be to let yourself be tricked by one party or the other into backing their candidates and empowering their program of paying off their elite contributors - or else to reject the legitimacy of the system in a more extreme and irrevocable manner. Faced with that fork in the road, the impulse to hop the ditch and take off across the field to tend your own garden appears to be the only path to a life of well ordered passions and perhaps even safety.

I am sick of the McCarthyite tactics around here of people constantly posting hysterical screeds directed against imaginary enemies.

Almost nobody at DU will sit out. Almost nobody here is "working against Obama." Almost nobody here is "hoping" Republicans take over congress.

There was a thread headlined "If progressives get their way and Republicans take over Congress..."

So when people post this nameless enemy stuff directed against DUers I sometimes post a poll to see if the hysterical fantasies of "what DU thinks" have an basis in fact.

because I don't particularly care about Florida. I WILL vote for Florida Senator because that office will affect the entire country and I do care about that.

were you here with Jeb in power? Do you not see what he has done to the children in our state with his educational "reform"?

You really don't care which of the two candidates wins the election? You are really willing to write off your own state of residence with Scott?

:boring:

that many days until Election Day.

for solidly left, non-neo-liberal dems, 3rd parties, and write in when necessary.

Got it?

The Democrats would see it as a reason to move more to the right.

they'll take it as an affirmation of their policies and continue to veer towards the right.

They'll take it as an affirmation that they may continue and keep moving left because they have the support.

the way in which Obama was elected, and with the nominal support he's enjoyed in Congress, there was no real reason not to have already move leftwards.

We'll no doubt disagree, but they'll see that the specter of a Palin/Jeb/Romney/? Presidency is enough incentive for even the most disgruntled voters on the left to pull the lever in their favor; there is simply no place else for those voters to go. If this gets them votes, then they know they can count on fear to keep the left in line. Should they lose, then the left is the perfect scapegoat.

Y'know for the people who will vote Green Party or Libertarian Party instead of Democratic Party in "protest".

...because if politics isn't a form of self-expression, or a form of social signaling via choice of consumer goods -- in this case, no-label -- then what good is it?

I mean, why should I do something I don't have to if it isn't going to make me feel good, or look good in front of my friends?

This is, after all, America, where 'Marketing' is a college major.

just about you. And, no, you weren't going over anyone's head.

Sputtering rejoinders about how "you just don't get my irony" are really something you should avoid. I understand the temptation - just resist.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9080072

Something of a disconnect, perhaps? Hope springs eternal? Thank you sir, may I have another?

Haven't missed a GE or primary since 1972.

As much as I hate the DLC and blue dogs, the GOP alternative is worse.

HOWEVER, this question should be asked again in 2012. If things have not drastically improved by then, I will re-evaluate the 'voting for the lesser of two evils' strategy.

Everyone has the right to make their own decision. I support that right, even in the highly unlikely event that their decision is based on spite.

Not voting has never been a consideration since the day I became 18.

to be very close, 5% could make all the difference in the world in helping
the sicko Neocon Republicans to win and rule over us. Thanks, you people!