orthogonal's Journal: "Vote" in the unofficial orthogonal presidential straw poll

In order to gauge who Slashdotters' opinions in the upcoming United States Presidential election, I've added a series of five user journal entries, immediate "below" this one.

Please indicate which candidate you support for President of The United States by adding a comment to the journal recording tallies for the single candidate you support.

In order, the journals are for supporters of

• Republican candidate George W. Bush
• Democratic candidate John Kerry
• Independent candidate Ralph Nader
• Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik
• and finally a journal for supporters of candidates not listed above.

Please note that you should indicate the candidate you support even if he or she is not currently on the ballot in your state, or if you are illegible to vote for one reasons of age, residency, citizenship, or civil disability -- the point is to indicate support, not to predict the actual electoral outcome. But is you are illegible to vote, or your preferred candidate is not on the ballot, I'd appreciate your noting that, and the reason you can't vote for whom you support, along with your comment.

If the candidate or party you support is not explicitly listed, please add a comment to the fourth journal entry, "Supporters of a candidate or party not listed above", and begin the subject line of the comment with the party affiliation (if any) and candidate name of the candidate you support.

Please comment only in a single "candidate" journal. You may add a brief sentence indicating the reasons for your support, but please reserve longer advocacy or argument for this journal entry. Anonymous entries, multiple entries, and entries by the same user in more than one tally journal will not be recorded in the final tally of "votes".

(But multiple or anonymous entries commenting on the candidates or on this straw poll are more than welcome in this journal only.)

Thank you for participating in orthogonal's straw poll!

[x] The Vote

[LPetrazickis]

I posted this in the Other Party section:

I am Canadian, eh, so I can't vote.

Anyways, I'd support:
- Green Party of the United States [gp.org]
- The Greens [greenparty.org] (a less mainstream variant)
- Socialist Party USA [sp-usa.org]

Other parties are just bleh.:)

Re:[x] The Vote

[daniil]

Other parties are just bleh.:)

The independents [politics1.com] are fun, though ;7 My personal favourites:

Muadin [muadin.com] of the e-Democratic Party (sounds like a Slashbot to me)
"Average Joe" Schriner [voteforjoe.com]
A.J. Albritton [webtv.net]: relocate the federal capitol!
Joseph K. Bellis III [joebellis.com]: the PaleoConservative Voice of America
Andrew M. Rotramel [rotramel.net]: Chomsky for National Security Advisor!

independent - myself

[gotih]

i will vote myself for president on an independent ticket.

i live in california where the democrats will surely win -- my presidential vote will not make a difference. i'll vote for someone more mainstream (green/democrat) in the local and state contests because i don't think it is fair to my constituents to win two offices at once then have to choose.

i encourage people who wouldn't otherwise vote to get out this year and vote yourself for president.

--paid for by the people who don't believe in r

AAARGH!!!

[BandwidthHog]

I had to post something here as it was such a tremendous effort not to reply to the people on the George Bush side asking "What the fuck are you thinking?!?!?!?!?"

My favorite so far:

You don't switch the horse in midstream. So keep on with GWB for another 4 and keep scarey kerry away from the white house and his "I SUPPORT THE WAR TILL I DON'T SUPPORT THE WAR" stance outta here!

Holy crap, what kind of reasoning is that? "You don't switch the horse in midstream"???? I mean, I realize Bush/Dick '04 has

Re:AAARGH!!!

[Nasarius]

Holy crap, what kind of reasoning is that? "You don't switch the horse in midstream"???? I mean, I realize Bush/Dick '04 has said that, but I didn't really think *anybody* would own up to thinking such a thing in this context. Crikey!

And to his second point:
The Iraq war was sold to the American public, Congress, and the world as a war of pre-emptive self-defense because of the WMD threat. If you think otherwise, you have a very short memory.

It's been gradually revealed that the WMD "threat" was concoct

Re:AAARGH!!!

[Tau Zero]

... the one single piece of actual chemical weaponry found was one shell containing sarin gas that didn't even work properly. Contrast this with the ridiculous pre-war estimates of hundreds of tons of chemical weapons.

I've got to address this point by point:

• The shell didn't work properly because it wasn't used properly; binary munitions mix their poison-precursors when they are fired from a gun, and not before. If you blow it up you just scatter the precursor chemicals.
• There probably are hundreds of to

Illegible to vote

[wcbarksdale]

because the pencil smeared. (Yes, I have nothing better to do than make fun of other people's typos.)

why i changed

[Geno Z Heinlein]

I normally vote libertarian, but my support for libertarian views has been moderated by seven years in the private sector. The Adam Smith assumptions of free information flow, no barriers to entry, and so on, aren't realistic. The most important assumption, that people make the decisions that maximize their long term profits, just isn't true; they maximize their short-term satisfation.

Also, the Republicans have been manipulating elections and making secret deals since at least Watergate. Watergate, Iran-Co