[dburkhead]

Don't look at where the candidates are the same. Look at where they're different. Unless the candidates have exactly the same voting records, exactly the same history, exactly the same positions, on every issue that the office they are seeking may touch upon, then there actually is a choice to be made. And that choice is where your vote comes in.

When you don't vote, imagine for a moment that you were put into a situation where if you didn't find some point of difference between the candidates, some deciding factor that would make one better, worse, less bad, whatever, than the other, that all manner of horrible things would happen--you'd get incurable athlete's foot, poison ivy in sensitive places, your dog would die, whatever is suitably intolerable to drive you to make your best effort at picking form the available candidates. Now look at the opponent most likely to be able to beat that best effort choice because that's who you are voting for by not voting.


I've done "protest" votes before. Indeed, I did that in 2004 because I didn't like either of the main Presidential candidates and there really wasn't any risk of Indiana going to what I considered then and still consider the worse choice. However, I won't do that this time because the Indiana race (per the polls at this time) is too close and as much as I dislike either of the two main candidates I do consider one significantly worse. And so, I'll hold my nose and vote for the lesser of two evils once again.