August 09, 2003

Voting and Third Parties

Inspired by Matt Yglesias, CalPundit offers his take on the question only political junkies (yes, like me) care about right now: who to vote for in 2004. Neither Kevin nor Matt is discussing which Democrat to vote for (Not-Bush is the only certainty at this point), but instead they're taking on the question of electability. Lileks had some interesting thoughts on this earlier this week as well:

Listened to much radio commentary today on the Arnie candidacy, and as usual there was much lamenting and rending of garments on the ironclad right; he’s not this, he’s not that, he said this, he sleeps with a Shriver, etc. I am always mystified by people who would rather die pure than live with imperfections. Every candidate will always disappoint, somehow. Any candidate with whom you agree 100% is probably unelectable. If your bumpersticker says DON’T BLAME ME, I VOTED FOR AYN RAND I'm not particularly impressed. ‘Cause she’s dead and none of that stuff is going to happen. Doesn’t mean we can’t keep the ideas in play, but if you don’t vote because no candidate vows to privatize the sewage systems and disband the Food and Drug Administration, don’t come crying to me when your marginal tax rate hits 71 percent.

I find this discussion fascinating because my own political leanings tend towards libertarianism or possibly objectivism, although like virtually everyone in the world, my own beliefs do not line up neatly with any political party. But I've never voted for a third-party candidate, at least not for any federal office. When push comes to shove, particularly when it comes to the question of the Presidency, I hold my nose and pick whichever candidate I believe can be elected and will do the least bad job with the office. That has meant, to date, voting for Bush Sr., Clinton, Dole, and Bush Jr. It's too early to tell who I'll vote for in 2004, although of the Democrats running, I can really only see Lieberman gaining my vote right now. But fifteen months is a long time, so I doubt I'll really even begin seriously considering the issue of a specific candidate until next summer.

Right now, however, the question of electability remains an important one. I enjoy reading both Jim Henley and Arthur Silber, but I find it hard to imagine voting for a candidate from the Libertarian Party or an Objectivist, because they simply wouldn't gain enough votes to even win a single electoral vote. Therefore, not only would my vote seemingly be wasted, but by voting for a third party candidate I could find myself in a similar position as Nader voters after the 2000 election: by voting for what I considered the best available candidate, my second choice would lose to a worse option. Voting for the major parties is the only way to avoid that pitfall until a third party gains sufficient votes to make them a viable option.

That can't happen as long as people think like me, though. I have no idea how many more people might vote for third party candidates if they believed those candidates had a chance. It seems reasonable to assume there's at least ten million*, and that means enough to at least be noticed under our current system--10% of the votes cast in 2000. While insufficient to carry the office of the President, certainly a 10% showing might be sufficient to garner a few House seats. And while being one of 435 people isn't much, it's enough of a start to allow that party to start getting its message out to a wider audience. It's no overnight solution, but new political parties have arisen time and again over American history to either supplant an existing party or to have their ideas co-opted (and therefore, in part, adopted) by one or both of the existing parties. Speaking from my own libertarian leanings, it would certainly be a great thing from my perspective to see Republicans and Democrats arguing about how far to deregulate many industries, even if not a single Libertarian Party candidate reached office. How great is it to be a Democrat right now, after all? The big arguments on domestic policy over the past two years have been how many federal dollars to pour into education and how to design a new Medicare benefit. Even if the Republicans win all of those arguments, it's a net gain for the Democrats from a policy standpoint. It would be nice to see that pendulum swing the other way for a time.

So I should vote the candidate closest to my personal positions, regardless of his electability? Not so fast. Let's say that I cast my ballot for the Libertarian candidate in 2004, but Lieberman is my second choice and Bush my least-preferred alternative (wholly hypothetical, by the way). If Bush is my least-preferred candidate, am I really helping my cause by voting Libertarian rather than Lieberman? In the long run, sticking to candidates who espouse views more similar to my own has a chance of moving the arguments in my direction, but at the cost of 'worst' candidates winning office in the interim. So which is better?

As I've said before, the American government is a pretty robust organism (God knows, it's tougher to kill than cockroaches). The system has survived James Buchanan and Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson. Therefore, I'm not particularly susceptible to arguments that any one election is all that critical; America will go on, even if Al Sharpton ends up in the White House in January 2005. Would there be problems? Absolutely, but they'd be minor compared to the larger problems I see in the continual encroachment of government into the private sector. Ralph Nader's 2000 run certainly hurt the chances of the Green Party's politics from having a say in the short run, but I'm not as convinced that it can't help the party long-term. Look at how far left many of the Democratic nominees are moving in an attempt to convince Nader to stay away from the ballot in 2004. Sure, Nader will never be President, but many of his ideas may well see the light of day as the Democrats move left. Perhaps it's time for more people to vote their conscience that way. Maybe you won't have the satisfaction of voting for a winner, but how satisfying it will be to see other candidates start endorsing your ideas as their own in hopes of gaining your votes. There's no guarantee that will happen. If your ideas are unique to you, they'll sink in a heartbeat. But if there is a critical mass of voters who think the way you do, they're far more likely to see their ideas enacted by voting for them than by voting for the best electable candidate.

* Third party candidates collected 4% of the 2000 Presidential vote, 3,910,654 votes. It seems reasonable to assume that going up about 2.5 times if people actually believed their favored candidates had a shot at winning.

Posted at 10:54 PM | Politics