Strategic Voting

Is there any use of voting in a solidly one party state, whether it is Wyoming or New York?

Here at Principalities and Powers, we have argued that this is as important an election as we've had since 1932. An Obama-Reid-Pelosi government will swing our government and politics so radically to the left that regardless of how disappointing you may find John McCain to be, especially on domestic policy, voting for the lesser of two evils is voting to save the country from a lot of evil.

Some people find it difficult to do that with a clear conscience. They want to vote for someone whose principles they wholeheartedly embrace, rather than the lesser of two evils. But this is fantasy. People are flawed, and that includes everyone who puts himself forward for political leadership. There is always distance between a candidate's principles and the truth, and even between a candidate's principles and the candidate himself. In this fallen world, one is always choosing between degrees of evil, that is, between degrees of wisdom and folly, whether it be in principles or in personal character.

As for the conscience, the exercise of your vote is not a confession of faith. A vote is a civic tool, a means by which a free person helps keep government in the service of the public good. So it is perfectly right to cast one's vote in such a way as, in your local circumstances, you think will advance the public good most effectively.

Given that understanding, the way you vote in a swing state may differ from the way you would vote in a solidly Democratic or Republican state, depending on your political convictions. Thus, if I were to say, "A pox on both their houses," in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Florida, I would have only myself to blame when under President Obama abortion rates spiked, homosexual "marriage" universalized, the Supreme Court abandoned the rule of law entirely, and a generation of Americans were robbed of the fruit of their labor through economic depression and confiscatory taxes.

On the other hand, in a state like New York or Massachusetts, it would be quite reasonable to vote for, say, Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party. You would do this not necessarily because you think he might actually win a majority in the Electoral College, nor even because you think he is the best qualified candidate for the highest executive office by virtue of his Bible college education, his experience as a Baptist minister and radio talk show host, and the judgment he displays by his association with the John Birch Society.

You might vote for him simply because his general emphasis on adhering to the Constitution and to the system of limited government that the Founding Fathers bequeathed to us in that glorious document might help pull the Republican Party closer to the classically American understanding of liberty that is supposedly the creed of the grand old party.

Vote, and vote wisely.