Vote for Kinky Friedman if you want to

People who want to vote for an independent candidate are often told that they're wasting their vote. There's no point, they're assured, because the independent candidate can't possibly win. The only reasonable thing to do, reasonable people insist, is vote for the lesser of the two major-party evils.

But that's not very good advice.

In politics, nothing gets everybody's attention like a big clump of votes.

If people who favor an independent candidate don't express that view at the ballot box, nobody knows they're there. But if they turn out and vote for the independent candidate, everybody who wins or wants to win takes note of the number of voters who favor those positions.

They take note of it for many years to come.

They take note of it in future statewide races, and in the presidential primaries.

If you support an independent candidate and you don't vote for him (or her), future candidates have no way to know that you exist.

Sure, there are polls. But after the election, nobody pays attention to pre-election polls. Polls are only a guess based on the number of people who answered their phone at dinner time. Votes are actual people who knew the date of the election and the address of their polling place.

So if you want to vote for Kinky Friedman, or any independent candidate, don't be touted off the idea. Your vote counts. Maybe not in this election. But very likely in the next one.



Copyright 2006


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