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Why I Am Voting for Evan McMullin
Hillary Clinton is awful. No question. This is not a matter of who is marginally more suited for the Oval Office – neither one is. We know Hillary’s sins – deceitful, scheming, greedy, paranoid, vindictive, incompetent, and very likely criminal (feel free to pile on if I missed anything). She has experience, I’ll give her that, but it is not good experience. She was my Senator for eight years, and I can’t recall a thing – good or bad – she did in that time. As Secretary of State, her hands were tied by Obama, but she still embraces his policy choices now. I will concede she may be better on trade and foreign policy than Trump, but that’s not a given.
To say Trump is better is like saying Charles Manson is more likely to go to heaven than Joel Rifkin. He is vain, lecherous, ignorant, and dishonest. He has done nothing to show he has thought through issues, or even cared to learn the responsibilities and limitations of the office he seeks. He has the moral standards of a pig, and a well-earned reputation for being a dishonest business man. Like Hillary, he lies nearly as often as he speaks, but she at least can craft plausible falsehoods. He will lie in his second breath about what he said with his first, and expect you not to notice. He lied about his faith, yet had such contempt for the faithful that he didn’t even bother learning enough to make that lie plausible. He does not have the history of abuse of power that Hillary does, but that’s most likely because he’s never been in a position to do so.
This is not a question of which candidate is more suitable for office. In my opinion, neither one meets even the minimum standard to be called President. I believe both will be bad for the country. Both are unfit.
If you are convinced otherwise, that’s fine. I have regretted votes I have cast in the past, so who am I to tell say you are voting wrong? And even if you are, you are as entitled to do so as I am.
But the point is over the past year both candidates have had the chance to sway me – Trump more so because he was more of an unknown factor. Both have failed. Hillary is still under investigation, still has no rationale for running, and her pandering has only become worse. Trump is marginally better as a candidate, but he is no more honest or decent than he was a year ago.
On a national level, my vote will not affect the outcome of the election. It only matters perhaps in what message it might send (even then it will be but a drop in the bucket).
So I am tossing my vote to Evan McMullin. As a former CIA field operative, he has already risked more for his nation than either major party candidate. On paper, at least, his policies most align with mine. More importantly, he seems to be a decent human being. His lack of executive experience would likely have kept me from voting for him in the primary, but that would have been a case of less fit, not unfit. It is a vote I can cast with a clean conscience, and to me, that is what matters most. Many of you will vote for Trump with a clean conscience. More power to you. As Shakespeare wrote in Henry V, “Every subject’s duty is the king’s, but every subject’s soul is his own.”
And if my vote in any way strengthens the message that voters want a conservative candidate, an honest candidate, and a moral candidate, rather than the fetid charlatans leading the field, so much the better.
Published in General
I’ll wager a steak dinner that Utah will not provide Hillary the electoral votes she needs to win 270. The worst McMullin might do is to Nader a swing state.
Clinton may well be overcautious (to put it kindly) in responding to crises, but Trump is more likely to be rash. I honestly believe that a quick tempered response is more likely to be damaging in most circumstances, especially given Trump’s general ignorance and inexperience. Of course I don’t have much faith in Hillary’s ability to use her own experience to make a good decision, either.
I think you need to reread what I wrote, because you are flat wrong.
I don’t want to pretend I’m a military expert because I’m not.
But my understanding is when you are under attack and request help, the standard military practice is to send help to save the lives of your brothers in arms
The Benghazi attack was a real time, right now decision, the correct decision should have been reflexive(rash?): SEND HELP ASAP.
Hillary and Obama made a political decision to do nothing, then afterward lie about the circumstances of the attack. Proving that for Hillary Clinton politics takes precedence over national security.
You don’t need to speculate what Hillary would do, you already know. The known known is Hillary Clinton has PROVEN herself to be unqualified to be the Commander in Chief.
Ballots are for electing people to office. I believe that voting in order to make oneself feel good is a misuse of the ballot.
I spent a good part of the end of the 2012 campaign on another web site trying to persuade conservatives to vote for Romney. He wasn’t my pick, he had some horrible baggage, he didn’t seem to be willing to really fight for the job.
Many flat out refused to vote for him. I tried as hard as could to convince them that flawed as he was as a conservative, he was better then leaving Obama in charge for another 4 years. I convinced a few, but as we all saw, there were lots of others out there who either didn’t vote, or cast a vote for someone else as a protest. We all see how that worked out.
This election is now looking close. Real close. You have the choice of trying everything you can to stop Clinton, an real honest to God criminal, lying, coniving, enabling, blood soaked, who will rule by EO, continue the corruption of every federal agency, bury us with amnesty and millions more illegals and refugees, and move us far to the Left in the Progressive Long March.
I’m convinced this may be an almost literal last chance to save what I believe in America. Please. Think long and hard,
” President Elect Hillary Clinton”.
Im doing everything I can to prevent that.
Also, for those who prefer to concede 2016 in hope of a Conservative revival in 2020, think again. Everything She has done to get into office will have been de facto legitimized. Conservative principles will have no currency out there in the real world.
‘Make oneself feel good’ is an awfully strange phrase for clean conscience. The man seems to me to be thinking of himself as a citizen & of the dignity of that situation. That seems about right to me.
With respect, Titus, your interpretation may be true, but you are completely reading it in. Either way, though, he’s being self-indulgent, and given that he knows that his candidate of choice will not be elected, he is not using his ballot for the purpose it was endowed to him.
There is also such a thing as a scrupulous conscience.
He is a citizen. All citizens, as citizens, while not breaking the laws or attacking the community, should look to their dignity. He does not owe you or anyone else to elect anyone he thinks it against his conscience to elect. Americans will live & die by their understanding of right, not by fantastic calculations of partisan conflict.
As for my reading–his explanations are pretty clear about the fact that he thinks this is a matter of who should govern. That’s a political matter, a matter of citizenship. Had he talked about Christianity or what have you, I would not have said his conscience is primarily meant politically here, of course.
That’s a cute show, but it’s not true to the understanding of justice that is now tearing Americans apart. Everyday, someone on Ricochet says the other people or some of them, usually the people who run the joint, are not even right-wing. Nobody can be tolerated in this view. There are those like Mr. Podhoretz who openly contemn the people who support Mr. Trump as at least as knavish as him, & possibly worse, for being foolish, too. These are political passions & much misunderstood here. I do not know what we have left as a community except an unwillingness to walk away. I hope that will do for now & some miracle provide the rest of what is needed.
I will say only the obvious about Ricochet-conservatism, if the various opinions can be called that–it has completely broken, in a fit of passion, with the conservatism that said ‘with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.’
I’ll dismiss your first paragraph as a tribute to strawmanity.
As for the rest, I’m not questioning his motive or his judgement on who he thinks should govern. I’m saying that the ballot is an ineffective and improper method for communicating that choice.
I like your thinking and have thought she would be the weaker president also.
Ineffective I’d grant you, in part. But after all, between low turnout, more votes for non-major party candidates than at any point since ’92 or even ’92 & polling about the negatives of the major candidates, I think Americans can acquire a sense of their own dignified dissatisfaction with what the political parties have to offer in this election.
That is also part of American politics, not just electing someone or throwing someone else out of office.
As for improper–again, it seems to me you have no authority to make that statement & that you misunderstand what voting is about, ultimately, what consent of the governed means. I certainly don’t see that your argument is any better than his!
Otherwise Obama wouldn’t say he needed his pen. “Those obstructionist republicans.” We all scoffed at Obama’s “created or saved jobs” due to the stimulus, and said it was unverifiable. There is proof the republicans did work to stop Obama’s agenda. Even Obamacare was a compromise by Democrats because of Scott Brown’s election.
There are millions of us who feel just the way you do!!
I don’t claim any authority whatsoever. If you’re interested in reading about my understanding of “what voting is about,” I presented it more thoroughly at the post linked to in #66.
I assert that psychologically every vote for Evan McMullin counts three to ten times more, because it underlines that Conservatives are withholding our votes from Trump, and that for everyone who votes to Evan or writes him in, there are three to ten other voters who agree with them in spirit. I hope and pray that Evan carries Utah to set the precedent that Conservatives will vote for their country over party.
And effectively giving them to Clinton.
I just came from the 538 site. He has upped Trump’s chances of winning to 35% and was pretty positive about the state of the electoral college because of his current polling in the swing states. He also said it’s very important that Trump’s Never guys come home and vote their candidate in order to defeat Clinton. If he loses, it will be on the Nevers. But, saddest of all, it will mean four years of unbelievable corruption by the Clintons, years of investigations and a far left Supreme Court.
I watched Hacksaw Ridge today and said here why it reminds me of this election.
In short, if Desmond Doss told some of the people on this thread that he was choosing on principle to not take a gun into battle with him during WWII, they would say he was trying to help Japan win. ;)
If a voter’s conscience leads that voter to cast a ballot for Trump or Clinton, then he should do so. No hard feelings from me either way. I can respect that someone else has carefully weighed his/her decision and come to a different conclusion than I do.
However, like @misterd, I am writing in the name Evan McMullin on Tuesday. I firmly believe I am fulfilling my civic duty to the best of my ability when choosing this 3rd party option. And I’m glad I’m not alone.
I must object and strenuously. I take my cue from Lord Emsworth in defending porcine probity. Pigs are noble, if regrettably odoriferous, creatures.
There is another option based upon the 12th Amendment. Let’s say Evan McMullin wins Utah’s 6 electoral college votes, and Trump and Clinton each get 266 electoral college votes.
The electoral college electors meet in their state capitols on December 19, 2016. What if the 18 electors in Ohio go rogue, and vote for John Kasich, meaning that the vote would be Clinton 266, Trump 248, Kasich 18 and McMullin 6. Since the House votes between the top three candidates, they would choose between Clinton, Trump and Kasich.
What if the Florida electors hear of this and their 29 electors vote for Marco Rubio? Then the vote would be Clinton 266, Trump 219, Rubio 29, Kasich 18 and McMullin 6. The top 3 candidates would then be Clinton, Trump and Rubio.
The vote is one vote per state, with a 26 state majority needed, putting a premium on farm/western states. What if Clinton and Trump each have 15 delegations, McMullin, Rubio or Kasich have 10, and 10 delegations have a three way split and not a majority for one candidate? The Senate would choose Vice President Kaine or Pence to be the Acting President until a majority of 26 states agree.
Seeing this, would Democrats be willing to work with moderate Republicans to choose McMullin, Kasich or Rubio, to avoid Trump? What if electors before December 19 try to suggest a compromise candidate like McCain or Lieberman to get a majority of 26 states?
I have read literally hundreds of posts on the McMullin candidacy. Other than the overly complex concept of tying up the electoral college by means of a Utah win, I have not seen a single solid reason to vote for him, other than perhaps a reluctance to simply leave the top spot blank. Goldman Sachs, CIA, Capitol Hill, those Republican racists, Mindy Finn. Be my guest.
Kasich isn’t on Ohio’s November ballot. The 12th Amendment states:
That sounds to me as if a state’s congressional delegation must choose one of the Presidential candidates on the ballot in their state in the general election and are don’t have the power to “go rogue” except to the extent of crossing party lines on that short list. For California, that’s Clinton, Trump, Stein, Johnson, and La Riva (Peace and Freedom). California has 37 (D) and 14 (R) Congresscritters and the Dems have good party discipline.
Ohio has 12 (R) and 4 (D) in Congress. In Ohio, there’s a long candidate list, but no Kasich. I’m not certain by the language of the amendment whether a write-in candidate in the top 3 would be eligible. Probably, for that state’s list.
Good thing I’m not voting for her. Thought I made that clear.
My understanding is faithless electors can vote for anyone. I don’t know if Ohio allows faithless electors, but if so, they can vote Kasich. If Kasich is one of the top 3 electoral vote getters nationwide, the House can vote for him for President. They are not limited to names on the ballot.