I do not think there has even been a worse "hold your nose and vote" election than we face in 2012!

[Logical]

We have no other choice. We are not necessarily voting for Obama but voting against the GOP.

No way we can let any of the GOP candidates take control of this country.

The only sane one is Huntsman and he is still a right wing idiot with his jobs plan.

With the possible SCOTUS openings in the next term we have to have a democrat in there.

I am not happy with Obama but no doubt will vote for him.

I will not work or donate money to him this time, but he gets my vote. I have no other choice.

[TwilightGardener]

1. I'm voting for Obama. Will do so proudly and gladly.

[SecularMotion]

4. +1

[Logical]

5. I will do so but not proudly or gladly.

[Occulus]

72. I won't do so.

I can't vote for a person who thinks my rights should be left up to the individual states.

[JoePhilly]

33. +1

[Number23]

62. I'll also give as much money as I can for his re-election.

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. All of them are....

...unless you've voting for undead zombie Eugene V. Debs.

[B Calm]

3. Fool me once shame on you, won't be fooled again!

He still has a chance to win back my vote, but I'll be damn if I will hold my nose and vote!

[doc03]

6. I've been voting since 1969 and all I can say every single one

of them has been a big disappointment. I come to the point I wonder if it even matters anymore. It's sad it only takes maybe 26% of the eligible voters to get elected and 25% of the eligible voters are bat shit crazy.

on edit: I didn't vote in 1969 I was in the Army in Fort Gordon, voting was not a priority at that time. So 1970 would have been the first.

[Honeycombe8]

9. I'm beginning to think that way, too. And hey!....I found a poster who's older than I am!

I've been voting only since 1976. (I don't think I voted in 1972, but I'm not sure. I was old enough, though...you only have to be 18, right?)

1976 - Carter.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

17. Don't change Dicks in the middle of a screw, vote for Nixon in 72

Not something I'm likely to forget.

[Irishonly]

54. 1st vote in 1972

Proudly voted for McGovern

[Tuesday Afternoon]

11. I have been voting since 1976 and I feel the same way. it is sad and an

exercise in futility.

[LiberalFighter]

40. It does matter. There are so many things in our lives that are effected

and we sometimes only see part of it. Consider what has happened in the states now controlled by Republicans that are able to ride rough shod over everyone? If we didn't have the President and the Senate it would be much worse than when Bush was President. Or if McCain had been.

And yes there are Democrats that are asses. We need to do a better job of electing better Democrats at the local levels that know how to get support for the issues. It needs to be more at the legislative branch at both the state and federal level. If the Democratic Governor of your state or the Democratic President doesn't have enough good Democrats in the legislative branch to pressure them and garner enough votes then it will be difficult.

[jpak]

7. I'm not "holding my nose" I will smile with satisfaction when I vote for Obama - again

and laugh at the nose holders

Obama was handed a mountainous pile of shit by Bush and the GOP and asshole Teabaggers.

He has persevered and what did he get from some Democrats?

another pile of shit

yup

[solara]

34. I will also vote proudly for Obama again

I am very glad he is in the White House and I want him to stay there.

:headbang:

[Auntie Bush]

65. Same here. I'm with ya 100%.

[Auntie Bush]

67. How can any real Democrat not vote for Obama?

If he doesn't...he's not a good Dem and......I'll not say anything more If I know what's good for me. :evilgrin:

[WhiteTara]

8. Work for your homies! We need a Democratic HOUSE & SENATE

We need Democrats in our state and local legislature. Quit complaining and do something positive. We are in the fight of our lives and you sound like your only act will be to hold your nose. Please call your county Central Committee and find out if there are vacancies, where the club is and join, who the candidates are, etc. ALL POLITICS ARE LOCAL!!!

[LiberalFighter]

41. Absolutely!!

People for some reason that the President can do everything. But he needs bodies on his side to support him.

[WhiteTara]

48. All up and down the food chain. We need our local

politicians to listen to us. Then our state and federal politicians will also listen to us because they will have known us when they were just local.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. My nose holding days are over. I vote for candidaes that earn my vote.

Or, at least, convince me that they're the most progressive, anti-war, candidates on the ballot.

[treestar]

12. But it is not just between you and the candidate is it?

One should hardly use one's vote in this way. You may feel good on Election Day, but what about the rest.

Politics is about all of us, so it makes no sense to look at it as a relationship between you and each candidate.

[Demit]

18. What? You have a weird idea of why & how people should vote.

My vote is mine, not partly yours. Your vote is yours, not partly mine.

[treestar]

24. You're the ones with the weird ideas about your vote

You really think Obama is going to cry because he did not get your vote? Even if he loses, only you will get emotional satisfaction out of it. And that's all you'll get. Along with a Republican President and Congress.

I'm not going to punish any Democrat that way. it has no effect. I'm going to vote for them because combined with others, we have a chance to get the Democrat into office or have them remain there.

If only the socialist candidate or Green candidate "earned" my vote, I'm not going to vote for them until they have a chance of actually winning. The only time I've voted Green is for local office and only once had that opportunity.

In the meantime, I'm not making them earn my vote, I'm voting for the best realistic alternative.

[B Calm]

28. My nose is bleeding now from voting against my own best interests.

Fuck these DINO's and Bluedogs!! They're destroying the democratic party.

[Raine]

61. TOTALLY agree nt

[Demit]

32. You can vote any way you like. It's your vote.

As for me, I got suckered once into thinking Obama was a Democrat, because he said he was. And he said all the right things! Now I have his actions to go by, that contradict all his nice words. Now I know better. And believe me, there's no satisfaction in that. Just a sense of tragedy.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. Yes, it is. Just like it is for every other voter.

Why do you vote? Is it not because of how you feel/think about the candidates, the party, the issues, and your personal circumstances?

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." John Quincy Adams

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.

"Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man." Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795.

[City of Mills]

13. Seconded

I'm not playing the game anymore, the candidate who most closely represents my interests gets the vote. Probably not going to be a major party candidate, I don't care.

[backscatter712]

38. OK, I'll mark you down as a vote for Perry. n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

58. You expect Perry will be the most progressive, anti-war, candidate on the ballot?

I don't.

[WhiteTara]

50. Try more than their opponent. Please remember the

lessons of 2000. Nadir convinced "you" that voting for "the lesser evil" was evil. We got * who was/is evil incarnate. My grandmother had a saying when people did counter productive things...You would cut off your nose to spite your own face.

[Demit]

14. I didn't expect that my only two choices would be a Republican or a Republican.

Good thing there's a write-in option.

We've now seen this "Democrat" in action for almost three years now. We can't rely on him to fight for Democratic ideals now. What makes you think he'd nominate, and then fight for, a Supreme Court candidate with Democratic ideals in future?

[Fumesucker]

15. I Have No Nose and I Must Vote For Democrats..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9080106&mesg_id=9080106

[izquierdista]

16. Two possibilities

(1) Enough people hold their nose and Obama gets a second term.
Result: More compromising and Repub-lite policies, more Afghan war, more Keystone pipelines and banksters crashing the economy for another bailout, leading to total revulsion for Democrats and a Republican sweep in 2016 and 2020.

(2) Not enough people hold their nose and a Repub edges out Obama.
Result: More Afghan war, more Keystone pipelines, banksters continue to transfer money from Main st. to Wall St., no compromising, and a few hard-right social policies like a moratorium on gay marriage laws that will freeze social issues in place for four years. If the Depression gets bad enough, a REAL Democrat may emerge and dust off a New Deal economic platform and run on it. Conditions will be worse for those 4 years, but at the end, there will be no Republican sweep and they may have to crawl under a rock for a while.

So do you want to get shit on immediately, or will you hold your nose and jump into the swimming pool of shit later?

[Demit]

23. Exactly. Same destination, but do we take the express or the local?

And, if we have a GOP winner in 2012, at least the Dems in Congress would be free to fight back without feeling they're fighting the leader of their own party. We're probably headed for hell in either case, but that would be nice to see.

[RC]

36. No way do we want the right wing loones to get in in 2012 or 2016

If that happens, things will get much worse, more people will take to the streets and they will have their excuse to pull out the stops in the Patriot Act. Dictatorship anyone?

[NNN0LHI]

19. Worse? It is cut an dried for me

I will be voting for President Obama next year. I will run all the way to the polling station.

Don

[Upton]

20. No more for me...

I've had it. The two party system is a big charade anyway. When it comes to major issues like foreign intervention or the War on Drugs, neither party provides an alternative to the status quo.

[treestar]

22. What about 1996?

Why wasn't that far worse?

for that matter then, what about 2004? What about 2008? It is way too easy to attribute great progressive strides to Presidents who never took office.

What about 1988? Was Dukakis that kick ass liberal who was going to ignore Congress and just decree the takeover of big business by the government.

[TwilightGardener]

25. Man, you have nailed it--"way too easy to attribute great progressive strides

to Presidents who never took office". That's brilliant, and true. In fact, we're going back to Johnson, Truman and FDR most of the time in our negative comparisons of Obama here. I was alive for NONE of their Presidencies.

[frazzled]

30. Well, exactly ...

I've been voting since 1972, each time for the Democratic president. Which means I've only seen my choice (not my primary choice, but the general election choice) elected 4 times: Carter, Clinton, Clinton, and now Obama. Both Carter and Clinton were "disappointments," but I voted for them when they ran for reelection. I thought they were doing the best they could for the most part.

All those mythical presidents I voted for who lost are mere phantasms: people who I'm sure would have been as "disappointing" as the others. But disappointing is always as only measured by some unattainable ideal. How many people can call their own work or life other than disappointing when compared to some paradisical ideal they had when young? Yet it's still decent work and life.

[Bandit]

26. I really don't believe it matters anymore.

Obama is getting more Republicans things passed than any Republican ever could.. If you want a Republican America vote Obama. Democrats will block a Republican President but they somehow are made to go along with Obama when he presents the exact same things..

[TwilightGardener]

29. Republicans wanted health insurance companies to not be able to deny coverage?

They want preventative care to be covered? Republicans planned to end DADT? Republicans thought it best to bail out GM and Chrysler so that our auto industry didn't collapse and take all the related jobs down with it? Republicans wanted to pass a hate crimes act, or an equal-pay act? Republicans wanted to draw down troops in Iraq? Republicans want to extend unemployment benefits? Man, I am going to have to revise my view of Republicans, they're A-OK in my book.

[dionysus]

42. you better get it straight buster! i'd never send an undecided voter to this joint.

;)

[solara]

60. To TwilightGardner : Hear, Hear eom

[Number23]

64. Excellent. This thread is turning out much better than initially suggested

Mainly because of the responses to it. :thumbsup:

[TBF]

27. Unrec for false choices. nt

[Logical]

45. What are the choices then?

[TBF]

68. What would happen if they held an election and no one showed up?

Personally I think it's a dog and pony show. I go pull the levers - even in 2010 - and nothing changes.

Well, sometimes it gets worse for us working folks, but never better.

So my thought is that it is much more worthwhile to work on other types of resistance. Vote if you like, but don't expect that major change will come through that avenue.

[Johonny]

31. When I vote to return the house back to the Dems I sure won't be holding my nose

The Pelosi house was light years more progressive than the current house. There's more to life than the top of the ticket.

[Logical]

46. I 100% agree and that is where my money will go. None to Obama.

[LWolf]

35. I don't hold my nose,

and I don't vote for lesser evils.

I'll vote for every Democrat on my ballot that has earned my vote.

I always have a choice.

[lynne]

37. Your thread title is probably exactly what the Republicans were saying in 2008! eom

[Frances]

39. Am I the only one who remembers the 1968 Dem Convention

in Chicago?

I was so disgusted by Vietnam and the Convention that I did not want to vote Dem. But after a visit to my native Alabama, where George Wallace was preaching racial hatred, I went back to Boston and voted for the Democratic Humprhey over Republican Nixon.

Nixon won and hired Dick Cheney and Roger Ailes, who came up with the idea for a TV channel devoted to Repub talking points.

I have never regretted voting for Humphrey.

And I don't regret voting for Carter in 1980 when his opponent was Reagan. I think Reagan continued Nixon's Southern strategy. One reason Reagan did so well in the South is that he gave a speech in the area where 3 young civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi in the 60s and spoke well of the whites living in that area. Reagan gave us the first Bush, who paved the way for W.

I think it's self-indulgent not to look at the bigger picture.

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Exultant Democracy]

44. Hold my nose vote for Obama, but work my ass to take back Teddy's seat.

[Logical]

47. +1000....thank you for that!! Good luck!

[Warren DeMontague]

49. I remember being told there was no difference between Bush and Gore in 2000, too.

Funny how no one says that anymore. :shrug:

[Rex]

51. Not true, there are a lot of people here on DU that still stand

side by side with Obama on any subject or topic you can think of. However, in some ways you are correct, there is no other choice...Rick Perry must lose, even if people have to hold their noses and vote.

I won't be holding my nose, because I knew exactly what I was getting when I voted for Obama.

[Lucian]

52. I hate it when people buy into the "we have no other choice" option.

We do have a choice. That's the great thing about a democracy. If we hate either side, we can vote them out, right? If we don't like the leader, we can build up another one, right?

So what's with this defeatist attitude?

[NYC Liberal]

53. It's not a "hold your nose" election for me. I am voting for Obama, not against the GOP.

Do whatever you want.

[Douglas Carpenter]

55. oh realistically Clinton was pretty much the same. It;s just that compared to Gingrich and the lot

trying to drive him from office - he looked saintly. Plus we didn't have the internet then. Clinton was also more of a smoothly and had a lovable rogue element in his personality that was easy to find endearing - as opposed to the more reserved and less personable President Obama.

In fact realistically if the main point of being progressive is supporting significantly extending social democracy and reducing the military industrial complex - we have not actually had a Democratic nominee who was a progressive since 1972. Even Mondale in 1984 and Dukakis in 1988 did not actually support any significant increases in social-democracy or any cuts in military spending. With the exception of my first vote 39 years ago - they have all been votes against the Republicans - rather than votes for the Democrat.

[JNinWB]

56. My vote is for Obama

Given the environment in which he has had to govern, Obama has exceeded my expectations.

I maintain do-able, pragmatic expectations; not fantastical, ideological ones.

[Number23]

63. You tell 'em!

Absolutely! :thumbsup:

[Pisces]

57. I will vote for Obama full of pride. Maybe you will be stung on the nose by a bee and not have to

worry about plugging your nose at the polls.

[Bluebear]

66. Sounds typical from you. Vile.

[Pisces]

71. Typical? What is typical is the vile attacks on the Pres. on this board.

[CakeGrrl]

59. Don't presume "we" means everyone reading this.

I will not need to hold my nose, or go lie down, or take a cleansing shower or any of the other metaphors of disgust and pained angst when I vote for Obama in 2012.

[rug]

69. Humphrey and his war support was close.

[hughee99]

70. As long as the slogan isn't "Obama '12. Come on, you know you have to." n/t

[ThomWV]

73. It will either be Huntsman or Romney, and to tell the truth I don't see any difference

between either one of them and Obama. He doesn't stand up for Democratic principles and they won't either.

[Little Star]

74. First time in my life that I have ever had to hold my nose in order to..

vote Democratic. But I will hold it & vote for Obama.