Sounds Like Weird
21 October 2012
Daniel Ellsberg has written a great piece about why he’s recommending people in swing states vote for Obama (rather than for a third party) even though he himself does not support Obama. Also, he points out that people, especially progressives, should get out there and vote even though they feel disheartened.
In the eight to twelve close-fought states — especially Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, but also Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin — for any progressive to encourage fellow progressives and others in those states to vote for a third-party candidate is, I would say, to be complicit in facilitating the election of Romney and Ryan, with all its consequences.
To think of that as urging people in swing states to “vote their conscience” is, I believe, dangerously misleading advice. I would say to a progressive that if your conscience tells you on Election Day to vote for someone other than Obama in a battleground state, you need a second opinion. Your conscience is giving you bad counsel.
Ellsberg does mention some of the very real problems I have with the Obama administration.
While I know people voting for third-party candidates in California, and while I’ve considered doing so myself, the fact is that Obama repealed DADT, and he gets my vote for that alone. No one else has had the political clout to accomplish it.
Right now, it looks like everything south of the Mason/Dixon line (edit: as Ron Newman pointed out, save for Maryland) is probably going Romney’s way.