No, I'm not a moron.
And no, I've never had any suicidal inclinations to vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin.
I'm still straddling the Obama/Nader fence. And I know what a lot of you are suddenly thinking. I get an earful of it (or at least an inbox full of it) every time I even mention Ralph Nader's name here on The Huffington Post. But I live in a state where I might as well vote for Mickey Mouse for all the good it will do any candidate that even smells of progressive politics. My choice would be a lot easier if I were living in Florida or Ohio or even North Carolina, but in Utah, elections don't mean much for a progressive voter. It's obvious we can't afford four more years of the destructive and un-American policies that Republican Presidents have come to represent in my lifetime, but can we also afford the inevitable race to the middle that seems to be standard practice among progressives that win office these days?
Perhaps taking my vote and casting it for Ralph Nader can help steer the Obama ship to the left. Let's be honest here, course correcting the country back to where it was before Bush is a good first step, but we need to chart our course further towards the New Society that FDR began building. Obama's plans don't move far enough toward what we need.
We need stronger labor unions and more restrictive corporate regulation, of course, and I think Obama will probably get us most of the way there.
But the most important thing we need is single payer health care and I'm simply not sure Obama has the political courage to take on the special interests that hold both major political parties hostage.
Perhaps by voting for Ralph Nader and publicizing why I'm doing it will show Obama and his more ardent supporters that we need progressive steps that will be unpopular amongst a large portion of the electorate in order to set this ship right (or left).
Or I could just vote for Obama.
But I think Nader would be a better president and better represents me...
But Obama's probably going to be the president.
Can you see my conundrum?
Maybe you can't because of your blind scapegoating of Nader for the 2000 election. But we all know it wasn't his fault. And we were all for Nader before Gore blew 2000...
But being in Utah, maybe a vote for Nader can mean what it should. Or I could vote for Obama, since the race here in Utah is actually tightening.
Dammit, I just don't know.