The purpose of voting is not to elect great men, but to vote the bastards out - PJ O'Rourke.
I have written approvingly of negative voting in the past, and how such voting improves the stability of society. When we look to elect great people, we just naturally ease over into the idea that we want them to do great things. Worse, they get the idea that their job is to do great things. This does not always end poorly - the Interstate Highway System, for example - but the batting average is worse than Carlos Pena's and costs more than his $10M.
I tend to vote for the least bad. I stopped voting for Demo Presidential candidates years ago, and voted Independent, in a "plague on both your houses" attitude towards the two main parties. I began to vote Pub when I concluded that the Demos were more toxic than the Pubs. Voting independent would have in effect been a vote for the Democrats, so I stopped it.
ReplyDelete