Some Sinn Féiners called ’round to the house the other night. I was expecting some of the parties to start calling soon and SF were among those I was going to yell “feck off!” at. But damn them to hell they were so damn nice that I couldn’t but listen to what they had to say. SF have had accussations of intimidation thrown at them not so long ago but the SF reps who called around here were nothing but nice and polite. They still won’t get my vote though. I don’t know who will, they’re all cunts!
My name it is ma-ca an’ I hate you, one and all.
An’ I hate you, one and all:
Damn your eyes!
You may find that the candidate/party with which you most often agree is least likely to win. Or at least that has been my experience. If you want to know who’s sure to lose an election, ask me who I’ll be voting for.
:-/
That’s because I’ve ceased voting for the “lesser of (however many) evils”. There are only two types of candidates who get my vote:
1. Those with whom I’m in full agreement
(rare indeed!)
2. Fringe candidates who haven’t a prayer of winning
(I like to pat the occasional Don Quixote on the back
whilst depriving Usual Suspects of my vote).
Some say I’m throwing away my vote, but I don’t think a principled vote is ever a wasted one.
And what principle is served by the above conditions?
If I haven’t a candidate available with whom I agree, I can at least use my vote as a surrogate for my raised middle finger to the victorious cretin.
I also think that (at least here, in the US) it takes a lot of effort to get papers to be on the ballot, etc., so I like to give the “minor” candidates a shout-out that I appreciate the effort that it took to run a campaign.
Except the Natural Law party. I think they’re wackier than anything Ireland has to offer.
Cionaodh & Nicole
It’s hard to vote for the lesser of x evils when there are so many of the fuckers as there are here. So I usually vote for the nice guy or gal politician who appears to have some integrity and a brain in their head. So in other words I don’t vote very often.
“I don’t think a principled vote is ever a wasted one.”
Spot on!
p.s. finally got the vcr working about an hour ago. Will try to record some progs tomorrow.
Cionaodh and I are the kind of people who always show up to vote — local elections, state elections, national elections… For my part, that’s the way we were brought up; my parents always vote, though I find that they’re less cynical about political candidates than I am.
I feel that if all the people who DON’T vote because of the.dearth of good candidates actually got together and voted, it would make a huge difference — look at Florida in 2000 and imagine what would have happened had just a few thousand more people voted! I get really angry when people vote for the lesser of two evils, because that does absolutely nothing to change the world.
Can you write in candidates in Ireland? Every once in a while, I’ll write in Big Bird or my best friend’s name when I’m really disgusted with the choices.
That’s a very good point about people getting out and voting, it would make a huge difference. I think people often just get disillusioned when they see the same muppets time and time again. I would love to see a change of government here but there are just no other parties fit to do the job. It’s depressing.