okay. i have to respond.

the "pragmatic vote" debate was big in alaska this year. everyone thought the governor's race was going to be close. everyone said the green party should bow out to elect the "lesser of two evils" democrat. all the nader 2000 arguments were polished off and amplified.

in the end, it wasn't close. the republican long-time senator frank murkowski won. as did many republicans for state congress.

i voted nader in 2000, but it didn't matter (?) because bush cleaned up in alaska. i didn't vote for the green candidate yesterday, very much along "lesser of two evils" lines.

VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE is a big rallying cry, but it's a bit silly to think that this means voting for your number 1 choice, regardless of his/her chances. if your conscience tells you that a vote AGAINST the worst candidate is more valuable than a vote FOR your favourite candidate, then your conscience will VERY VERY PRAGMATICALLY tell you to vote for the most likely opponent to your worst enemy.

which brings me to my enlightening message: if you don't know about INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING, you will probably hear about it in the future. it is championed by 3rd parties, as it eliminates the above-mentioned conundrum of conscience. ranking of candidates allows a person to express both his 1st choice and his major-party choice (and any other choices). the state of alaska voted on IRV in the primary in august. it lost. but the only legit arguments i've heard are: (1) it's cost/need ratio is too great, and (2) it's different.

louisiana is now going to have a runoff election because no candidate got more than 50% of the vote for U.S. senator. Instant Runoff Voting does the same thing, in one election. minus the intermediate time to campaign more, etc., etc.

there's a lot of IRV voting reform stuff going on around the country (vermont, massachusetts, san francisco). you'll continue to hear about it...