Editor,
A recent AP-Ipsos poll showed that 43 per cent of voters polled have not decided about the presidential election and another 4 per cent plan to waste their vote on a third party candidate. Most of the undecided voters consider themselves moderate or independent like me. Once again, I'm afraid voters are put in a position of having to decide who they're not going to vote for, and then resignedly push the other button. Being a proponent of the bell curve distribution model, I believe that many of the voters who say they have decided may change their minds and move toward the center as Nov. 4 approaches. Columnist Robert Samuelson recently called attention to what Arthur Schlesinger Jr. calls "the vital center" and the fact that it (or we) is being slowly disenfranchised. He also pointed out that party loyalists often become a tyranny of believers who dislike compromise and consensus.
What I'm writing about and warning against takes us to a frontal view of the "bell curve,” which incidentally Webster defines as "normal,” and we note that the bell has two outward rims or "extreme" edges. When I was a North Carolina resident 20 years ago, the inimitable and often beleaguered Jesse Helms pulled off one of his partisan political gaffes, definitely a "rim shot.” Some people were outraged and there was even talk of impeachment. In a letter to the Charlotte Observer, I conditionally defended him and urged people to leave him alone as he was earning his keep by predictably always canceling out one of the votes from "the other rim.”
I must quickly point out that there's an important distinction between a senator who is an extremist and a president who leans too far one way or the other. People must realize that or otherwise, we would have had a Ross Perot or a George McGovern in the White House. What I'm saying is it's getting crunch time, and we voters need to try to get to the core of what's really driving a candidate. Is one or the other of our presumptive presidential candidates likely to try to flatten the curve and pull our nation to one of the rims? Don't count on anything coming out of the conventions, which to me are just circuses for freeloading party loyalists and contributors. Folks, listen up and forget the petty bickering and other minutiae and listen objectively for core beliefs. Think of the rim(s) of the bell as the edge of a cliff over which we do not wish to be led!
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August 20, 2008
8:22 a.m.Report inappropriate content
No, Mr. Poole, if we reject what the two major parties have thrown at us this year, and vote instead for someone we would rather see in the White House, that is not wasting our votes. Many conservatives will vote for candidates such as Chuck Baldwin (Constitution Party), Bob Barr (Libertarian Party), or write in a conservative. Many liberals will vote for candidates such as Cynthia McKinney (Green Party) or Ralph Nader (a petition candidate, I believe), or write in a liberal. None of these has any chance of winning, and we're all grown-ups enough to know that. But voters who refuse to hold their noses and vote for the least objectionable candidate, just because they believe he will do a little less damage than the other candidate, are voting conscience and conviction. They (we) are not wasting our votes. Mr. Poole, if a voter chooses a candidate he would rate a "D+", over a candidate he would rate a "D-", while rejecting a third party candidate he would rate an "A-", who is the real vote waster here?
August 20, 2008
8:34 a.m.Report inappropriate content
Looking at core beliefs is good advice. In doing so I see two diametrically opposed core belief systems in the candidates. One candidate loves his country, fought for his country and nearly died for his country and when the chips were down displayed his true core Christian beliefs while a guest at the Hanoi Hilton. The other candidate attended a church congregation that despises America and considers its allegiance is to Africa. Also, according to every utterance of this other candidate, he envisions an extreme socialistic direction for America, which will take us further away from the America, described in the Constitution. If I read your letter correctly, both of us will vote for McCain because he represents a center to right of center position and Obama’s position is extreme left wing on your bell curve.
August 20, 2008
8:46 a.m.Report inappropriate content
One candidate had an affair while he was married.
August 20, 2008
9:04 a.m.Report inappropriate content
I guess there will always be a debate over voting for the best candidate or voting the lesser of two evils. I agree with article1section8 that voting our conscience isn’t necessarily “wasting our vote”. However, remember that the third party candidate Ross Perox took enough votes from Bush senior to allow Slick Willie to slink into the White House. Bottom Line? Conservatives voted to put Slick in the White House, and possibly because of his inaction and wrong moves we lost the Twin Towers. The direction of this country and to some degree the world, does depend on who we vote for.