“You’re voting for who?” I’ve been asked by friends and relatives who wonder why I’d waste my vote on Libertarian party candidate Bob Barr. “You might as well stay home” some advised. “What a dopey thing to do!” one threw in.
This coming from people who complain about the mafia-style duopoly our government and political process have become. People who’d rather vote for the lesser of two evils, rather than what they truly believe. And who can blame them? It’s not easy taking third, fourth and fifth party candidates seriously when the Democrats and Republicans make it next to impossible for any viable options. The GOP for example, has succeeded in keeping Bob Barr from the presidential debates, and was nearly as successful in keeping him off the ballots in certain states.
It’s still a financially Herculean task to compete against the two major parties’ multi-million dollar campaigns to get their candidate into a job that pays only $400,000 per year. And one which they must resign from after 8 years anyway. Simple math doesn’t justify such an insanely expensive job campaign. But it makes sense when one adds up what the interest groups behind those campaign dollars have to gain.
Which is why listening to Obama talk about his plan to improve our public schooling system by hiring “an army of teachers” as opposed to more results oriented voucher programs, I hear the teachers’ unions talking. Listening to McCain speaking about victory in Iraq even if it takes 100 years, I hear weapons contractors strategizing. Listening to them both talk about “tackling” the global warming hype now touted as climate change, which is inevitable, I hear a number of energy industry lobbyists and environmental groups who stand to gain from a $78 billion dollar a year cap and trade agreement.
Yet when I’ve listened to Bob Barr speaking about the dire need to cut government spending and entitlement programs, I not only hear a sound, responsible economic principle, but I hear the average hardworking American who’s fed up with their tax dollars being insufferably wasted by inept governmental agencies that have become unionized bureaucracies. I hear people who understand that real needed change doesn’t need to be a trillion dollar yearly deficit. I hear those who realize voting for policies that actually work, let alone they believe in, is far less “dopey” than staying at home and letting an all too powerful two-party system shut you up, and shut you down altogether on yet another election day.