OpEd: The Great Horse Race

[MorGrendel]

The Great Horse Race

So what happened to the third party votes? VotePact.org, a site dedicated to linking disenchanted Republicans and Democrats together to vote for a third party, reported that the majority of the members of their FaceBook choose not to vote as they felt the election was going to go to Obama. They were also quoted to have said that they were unaware of any actual vote pairings. According to VotePair.com, a similar site that is credited with helping Nader in 2000, this election lacked two major factors: A close race and a strong third party representative.

Many felt this was Obama’s election to lose.

But he was not always the media darling he is now. This election was won back in the primaries. As the Republicans whittled themselves down to a single candidate, Hilary and Obama did battle. The Republicans, with a less photogenic McCain at the helm, were all but forgotten for months. This is when we got to know Obama; and his campaign worked diligently to make sure we did not forget him.

He eventually beat out Hilary, but the buzz remained as her possible VP status circulated around. At some point, the McCain people stopped making plans for what they were going to do after they won, and began a strategy for beating Obama. It was like they never even expected he’d win, and so instead of leading the way, they played a chess match blocking Obama’s moves with a sacrificial pawn defense. Even when the McCain people picked up an attractive young female VP, it was mostly looked as too little to late. McCain was always behind, and he never caught up.

The two traded a war of words and video shorts; damn you ObamaGirl. They interrupted normally safe havens from politics; like super hero shows and Monday night football. They permeated our psyche, and forced us to talk about them, even when we really, really did not want to. The apathetic probably did the healthiest thing and tuned out. They stopped caring, and in the end did not vote.

Moderates and Centrist, being politically minded, became polarized. Many voted against one candidate, rather than believing in the candidate they voted for. They likely searched for a lightening rod, some point to stand on, and so you heard talk of future Supreme Court selections, closing Guantanamo Bay, or the Joe the Plummer shenanigans. And so they felt justified, they had not voted for the lesser of two evil, rather they had voted against the evil for the greater good.

And then there are the Stupids; the idiots that wasted their’s and others’ time by voting for the “Phillies” or “None of these candidates”. People who walked into a voting booth because the felt they had a right to vote, even if that vote was uninformed and wrong. Maybe if they had a person to steer them right, like Ron Paul, then maybe they might gain enough sense to know what is going on… but I doubt it. On RonPaul.com there was a banner that said “Don’t vote for me, I’m not on the ballot, your vote won’t be counted.” Next to it was a poll for who are you going to vote for. No surprise, Ron Paul won.

Finally, the people I despise most are the Liars. Libertarians said they would never vote for McCain, but they did. Hilary Democrats said they would rather vote for Palin than for Obama, but they didn’t. If there is a more confused group of people, I’d be surprised.

This year’s election also suffered from a different kind of voter fraud, the belief that you could vote for anyone. The system is being changed. The votes weighed out long before you cast them. See Popular Vote vs. Electoral Vote. The RNC and DNC just hope “The Great Horse Race” will resemble the turnout of the people. They work to ensure this by shutting out anything that is not the status quo. The system only counted your vote, if you voted for who you were allowed to, and so Balwin was limited to only 37 states, Paul to 3 states, and Nader to 46 states.

I imagine that when you hear you can’t vote for the candidate you want, you don’t feel much like voting. I know I didn’t.