mpost4's Journal: Advice for those considering a third party

submited this to slashdot, but it got rejected, I will just post it here to see if I get some feed back.

This year's election has been one of interested, and hate on the part of the two major parties. It has to make one think about the validity of jumping to a third party, be it libertarian, green, constitution, constitutional. What advice would the Slashdot crowd give to some one considering a third part, what are good questions to ask of people that are already in the party one might be looking at. Other concerns, is voting in the primaries at the beginning of the year important, what parties have primaries. Are primaries really that important?

In WA

[Red Warrior]

IIRC (and I may be missing some of the nuance of our new primary system), a "3rd party" candidate needs to get 5% of the total ballots cast for that OFFICE in the primary to get on the November ballot. The more people are used to seeing more than two parties on the "real" ballot,the more they will consider looking at the 3rd parties. That's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Remember this:

[Bombcar]

Will you be unhappy if you vote third party and the candidate you like least of the big two wins?

Will your vote help the candidate receive 5% which then gives them government help?

Is your state so lopsided as to make your vote kinda useless?

If you're voting for, say, Nader, could you deal with people yelling that Nader voters cost Kerry the election? (Reverse for other parties)

You should vote for whom you feel would be the best candidate. After all, if you only pick the lesser of two evils, you're guara