Libertarian Librarian

Short story: Last year, probably in September, I was talking with my sister, who is as liberal as the rest of my family-- which is to say very-- and she wanted to know if I was still planning on voting for Bush. I said that, though I had significant reservations about it, yes, I was. I asked if she was still planning on voting for Kerry, and she said that, though she had significant reservations about it, yes, she was. The conversation wandered, as they often do, and somehow we wound up discussing how nice it would be if there were a third option, besides the two major party candidates, for None of the Above. If enough people voted for none of the above, the election process would start over until we found a candidate that people actually wanted to vote for rather than picking the "better" of two fools.

Which would be great. And completely impractical for any number of reasons. As much as we might wish for C) None of the Above, it simply isn't an option.

But there is a third option-- the write-in vote. Also impractical, but not impossibly so-- write-in candidacies have worked in the past, though always in rather small, local elections. Places where word-of-mouth is enough, and if you can get sufficient momentum going, it starts to be a positive feedback system.

The hard parts, of course, for a national write-in campaign, are getting everyone to write-in the same person and generating a word-of-mouth campaign across thousands of miles and involving millions of people. How to do it? Well, the basic principles are those laid out here.

I do think it could work-- if the ticket is good enough. Jon Stewart is an intriguing prospect. Anybody willing to call out Tucker Carlson gets big kudos in my book. But what he says in that interview makes sense. And, as the first link indicates, there's a built in base. He's smart, he's funny, and he honestly seems to care about America. In other words, he has no chance of ever being a major party candidate.

I do worry about his stance on the Iraq war. The fact that he thinks it was a mistake is worrisome to me. The fact that he sees a bias in Fox News but not in the regular news (though he does rip it repeatedly in other areas) is worrisome to me. I am going to review his book and other material and then decide.

In the meantime-- any other nominations for who should fill the C)None of the Above are welcome. And nominations for VP are also needed.

Lots of smart folks here-- let's see what we can come up with.

Labels: Politics