What's So Important About Now?

As a loyal third party voter (I have never voted for one of the two major parties for President... and very few for any other office), I am often asked how I could possibly waste my vote like I do. After all, don't I know that voting for a third party candidate is akin to giving a vote to the candidate from the two major parties that I like the least? In other words, wasn't voting for Michael Badnarik for president in 2004 the same thing as giving a vote to Kerry, since I saw Bush as the lesser of two evils? Badnarik, after all, had no chance of winning. I should vote for someone who actually does have a chance, otherwise I will just be wasting my vote... especially in this important time in our history when our nation is so divided. "It is more important now than it ever has been to make sure my vote is not wasted." I actually hear these words from otherwise intelligent people.

My response... at what point in our history has our vote not been important? Has there ever been a presidential election cycle where the nation wasn't divided, where the issues dividing the two major candidates weren't important enough to not "waste my vote"? The very first race between a Republican candidate and a Democratic one was in 1860. Were the issues facing Lincoln and Douglas any less important than they are today? Or what about when Roosevelt defeated Hoover in 1932... were those issues less important than today's? Or Kennedy v. Nixon in 1960? Johnson v. Goldwater in '64? Or how about after the Watergate scandal, when the nation had lost faith in its electoral system, was the '76 Carter v. Ford race any less important than any more recent one? And let's touch on that particular one for a minute...

After Watergate the nation's faith in our electoral system was in shambles. The power and prestige of the Presidency was at an all time low and the nation, more than anything, needed someone to step into the Oval Office and act as a healer... and we got Carter, one of the more forgettable presidents in our history. Not until Reagan took office four years later did the healing process truly begin. As "important" as the '76 election was, it didn't turn out to be that important.

My point is this... a vote for the person with whom your values most closely aligns is never a wasted one. There has never been, and will never be, an election that is so important so as to not vote your conscience simply to vote for the person you think has the best chance to win. Were that the case I would have voted for Bush in 2004 instead of Badnarik... now, with a couple years of hindsight, tell me that would not have been a wasted vote.