I’ve never voted for a major party presidential candidate.
In 1988, the first time I was old enough to cast a ballot, I declined. Just shy of my 21st birthday, I was an angry young man living in a Midwestern college town. I was cynical. I was determined not to be anyone’s chump. I was convinced my vote didn’t make a difference. My older girlfriend (24) was riveted by the showdown between Michael Dukakis and George H. Bush, so I followed matters through her eyes. I remember Lloyd Bentsen’s “You’re no Jack Kennedy” zinger to Dan Quayle in the vice presidential debates. And I remember it not being enough to overcome Dukakis’ disastrous campaign, which squandered a 17-point summertime lead. After it was all over, I eventually came to feel that there had to be a better way. Perhaps I shouldn’t simply sit on my thumbs just because I didn’t like either candidate.
By 1992, living back home in New York City, I was more engaged. But not in the manner that drove so many twenty-somethings into the arms of a young, smiling Bill Clinton, who was so keen to feel everyone’s pain, “rap” with the kids on MTV, and barely kinda cop to maybe having once smoked cannabis. No, when I say I was more engaged, I mean I attended a Halloween costume party dressed as a young James Stockdale. For those of you who don’t remember, Stockdale was independent billionaire H. Ross Perot’s running mate. And long before John McCain ever made a run at the national ticket, Stockdale already had “Survived a Vietnam Prison Camp” on his resumé. At the time, they looked like the perfect vehicle for expressing my disgust with a broken, homogenized political system, and they got my vote.
In 1996, while living in Nebraska, I again voted for Perot. This time, however, it was more out of desperation than inspiration. The first time around I was eager to throw a monkey wrench at Washington. I wanted more than anything to shake things up. I also hadn’t been alone. Perot scooped nearly a fifth of the popular vote in 1992, essentially clinching the election for Clinton. But in 1996, I punched his 
ticket out of exasperation. His crazy uncle routine, which had seemed charming in 1992, was tired and annoying by then (and apparently it’s since gotten worse).
And so I went into the booth, sighed, and pulled his lever mostly because I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for either Clinton or Bob Dole. It was obvious long before Clinton ever stepped into the White House that he was a lying piece of shit. Four years in the White House had only further exposed him as a pandering, center-right, NAFTA-whoring scumbag (There truly is no joy in saying “I told you so.”). And back then, before the Republican Party went completely bat shit crazy, guys like Bob Dole and George H. Bush seemed pretty goddamned awful. Nowadays, by comparison they seem like old, white versions of Barack Obama.
In 2000, while living in Arizona, I voted for Ralph Nader. If you have a problem with that, stick it in your crumb-pipe. For starters, Arizona wasn’t in play. None of the states I’ve lived in ever were. Secondly, and much more important, the Democrats don’t own my vote. I own my vote. And I vote with my conscience. That year my conscience was firmly dedicated to building a viable Green Party in the United States. In fact, I’m still a registered Green.
Of course George W. Bush turned out to be a disaster in most every way imaginable. And yes, Al Gore would probably have taken Florida and the White House if Nader hadn’t been on the ballot there. But Gore also would have taken Florida if the U.S. Supreme Court hadn’t issued a partisan 5-4 decision that handed the White House over to G.H.W.B.’s idiot son by a margin of just one electoral vote. Or, you know, maybe Gore could’ve just won his own home state of Tennessee, instead of losing it by 4 points. Or maybe he could’ve won any number of states where Nader was not remotely a factor. All he had to do was embrace his popular Clintonian antecedents instead of running from them, or take credit for a booming economy instead of the internet. I
’m sorry, but that shit’s all on him, not Ralph Nader.
Regardless, the bottom line is I’m not interested in those or any other what-if bellyaches. I reached the end of my rope with people trying to blame Nader supporters for Bush’s victory years ago. Anyone who’s got a problem with it should try talking to any of the tens of millions of people who actually voted for Bush instead me. I’m still proud to have voted for Nader in 2000.
However, I’m not so proud to have voted for him again in 2004. I wasn’t even proud of it at the time. By then we knew just what a monumental jerk-off Little Boy Bush was, dancing on the strings pulled by Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and the other neo-conservative blowhards. But I was living in Maryland, so once again it made no difference whatsoever. John Kerry won that state by a wide margin. So why was I reticent to vote for Nader again? Because he no longer was part of building something. If he’d taken 5% of the popular vote in 2000, the Green Party would have become eligible for public campaign funding. That was the real goal. Because if we’re ever going to have a viable national third party of any stripe, that will probably be the first step. But in 2004, Nader wasn’t running as a Green anymore. They’d moved on, yet he was determined to keep going. But with no hope of winning and no party behind him, it seemed more like a vanity project than a candidacy with a larger purpose. Then again, he represented my beliefs far more than Kerry ever did, does, or will, so I shook my head and voted for Ralph one last time.
In 2008, there was no intriguing non-major party candidate. I’ve always voted independently as a way of being true to myself; I won’t cast a b
allot for any politician whose platform I don’t agree with just to make a point. Libertarian Bob Barr? Not a chance. Green candidate Cynthia McKinney? In my view she was a prima dona with horrific priorities and a tenuous grasp on reality. And Nader’s third consecutive run was just pathetic.
What to do? The most generous thing I could think of: I took my votes and made a gift of them.
Tomorrow in Part II of this blog, I’ll explain how.