Thread: www.VOIDnow.com - Vote Out Incumbents for Democracy

ONE candidate, and one or two parties is the problem.
And, we're really only (but not restricted to) primarily addressing federal offices.
The two party system has a strangle hold on government.

I didn't dispute that the two party system has a strangle hold -- not so much on the government because they are too busy bickering to govern but on the American people who are at their mercy.

I contend that if people vote for fifty different "third Party" candidates for the same office or even five or six, then the ticket gets split too many ways that he who has the gold continues to make the rules. However, if we could settle on ONE third party candidate and back him to the hilt, financially as well as volunteering to help promote him, then there is a chance to beat out the incumbants as well as the other major party candidate.

As far as I can see the democrats and the republicans are interchangeable anymore as it applies to fleecing the public. It has to stop. The only way to make it stop is pretty much a clean sweep.

Lost, I'm with you all the way on cleaning house. As for which party I will jump ship to join at the last minute as my "thumb your nose" to the Republican party, that remains to be seen.

But voting out the incumbants is one of the most admirable goals. I've heard in years. Especially since both major parties are convinced they have everyone scared enough NOT to try a third party. I think we can win if we can only find candidates who can inspire the voters to get off their behinds and go vote. That is another major problem, isn't it? And it's not going to be easy to tackle, either. However, we have to try or we are going to be in for four more, possibly eight more, years of havoc.

I would rather that the same old faces on the other ticket don't show up back in office because they got replaced for doing a sorry job a;ready. It is going to be a job keeping up with who's who but I'm up for the challenge (unless I get alzheimers between now and next election time.) If I can remember what John Kerry said 30 years ago, I should be able to remember who got the boot in 2004!

Although I have been registered as a Republican ever since I became old enough to vote, I have not always voted for Republicans. I seldom vote a straight ticket. I can't always remember who ran what year but I can tell you whether or not I voted for the person that won or not.

Originally Posted by JuniusJnr

But voting out the incumbants is one of the most admirable goals. I've heard in years. Especially since both major parties are convinced they have everyone scared enough NOT to try a third party. I think we can win if we can only find candidates who can inspire the voters to get off their behinds and go vote. That is another major problem, isn't it? And it's not going to be easy to tackle, either. However, we have to try or we are going to be in for four more, possibly eight more, years of havoc.

I found this interesting chart which shows the turnout for mid-term elections from 1850 till 2002... Turnout really dropped off during the period from 1898 to 1926... Turnout went from around 65% to 35%, which is about where it is today.
http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/h ... lide2.html

Perhaps, it's not a coincidence that beginning in the late 1800s is when the newspaper business turned into Big Business and is when the small, independent newspapers went into decline... My theory is that the rise of Big Media caused the drop in turnout for mid-term elections and the general decline in our democracy... But hopefully the Internet will bring back our democracy from its 100 year slumber.

In the 2004 election, we had a 59% turnout... And yet, turnout for mid-term elections is usually around 35%... So, if we can just get some more of the people who voted last year to vote next year, then this could really change the results.

Originally Posted by JuniusJnr

I would rather that the same old faces on the other ticket don't show up back in office because they got replaced for doing a sorry job a;ready. It is going to be a job keeping up with who's who but I'm up for the challenge (unless I get alzheimers between now and next election time.) If I can remember what John Kerry said 30 years ago, I should be able to remember who got the boot in 2004!

Yes, once you're out, then you're out... No 3 strikes... This is not a ball game... One strike and "you're outa there."

And yes, it would be a job to keep up with all the candidates who have come and gone... Fortunately, we've got our "auxiliary mind" called the Internet.

For instance, I dimly recall hearing (maybe I imagined it) that Senator John Edwards may be running for President in 2008... Well, even though Edwards is no longer in Congress, I was able to find his immigration grade, which is a D... And also, a little research will reveal Edwards signs all the "free trade agreements" too.
http://grades.betterimmigration.com/ret ... &VIPID=483

Lost--I do get the point of the VOIDnow group AND I agree with Junius, and you also made the point, that we cannot just throw in a bunch of small third parties with multiple candidates on the ballot or we will be STUCK with the STATUS QUO. So, there's no question that we need ONE VIABLE third party candidate.

Junius--I've said this on other threads but I will reply to your post about voting a straight ticket. I have just NEVER understood how ANYONE could do that. Since I have always registered as an Independent, that's never been a problem for me but it just seems VERY NARROW MINDED to vote a straight ticket. To me, at least, it shows that the person is SO BLINDED by a particular party that they don't BOTHER to investigate a candidate's record before they punch those buttons.

As for me, until 2004, I have NEVER voted for a Democrat for President. I RARELY have voted for a Democrat in ANY national election. Sometimes on the state or local level, I HAVE voted for a Democrat. I consider myself a MODERATE to CONSERVATIVE INDEPENDENT so there are times that each party actually has a MODERATE candidate! That's my assessment of what's going on right now with the two-party system that we have now. And, this has NOT always been a problem. It has gotten MUCH WORSE since Bush was elected in 2000. The problem I see is that BOTH parties have just gone off the deep end on opposite sides of the spectrum. And, I shouldn't say "parties" but CANDIDATES have been either off the charts to the left or off the charts to the RIGHT. And, I believe that this is going to be their undoing because my firm belief is that the majority of Americans do NOT fit into those molds. I believe MOST Americans are moderate.

I will give Bush credit for ONE THING. He has pushed both the Republican party AND the Democratic party so far to polar opposite positions that he has opened the best chance I'VE ever seen for a viable third party candidate. And, I THANK YOU, MR. PRESIDENT!

Originally Posted by Bootsie

I will give Bush credit for ONE THING. He has pushed both the Republican party AND the Democratic party so far to polar opposite positions that he has opened the best chance I'VE ever seen for a viable third party candidate. And, I THANK YOU, MR. PRESIDENT!

Yea, I was thinking about that too... Every cloud has a silver lining... With this president, the silver lining might be that he is so bad that he might just wake up people from their slumber.

David Brooks (columnist in the New York Times) has coined the phrase "dislodged voters" to describe a new voting block of people who just no longer identify with either party... I read somewhere that something like 35% of the population considers themselves to be independent... I wonder if that percentage is growing?

Originally Posted by Bootsie

Junius--I've said this on other threads but I will reply to your post about voting a straight ticket. I have just NEVER understood how ANYONE could do that. Since I have always registered as an Independent, that's never been a problem for me but it just seems VERY NARROW MINDED to vote a straight ticket. To me, at least, it shows that the person is SO BLINDED by a particular party that they don't BOTHER to investigate a candidate's record before they punch those buttons.

I think this is the heart of the problem... When people stop voting based on what the politicians have done, then things can really go downhill... And oh my, how far downhill things have gone... And there seems to be no bottom to this hill.

Originally Posted by Bootsie

Lost--I do get the point of the VOIDnow group AND I agree with Junius, and you also made the point, that we cannot just throw in a bunch of small third parties with multiple candidates on the ballot or we will be STUCK with the STATUS QUO. So, there's no question that we need ONE VIABLE third party candidate.

I fear I'm in the minority here (but I'm used to that, as I'm the only Martian on my block ), because I do NOT believe that it's necessary that we have just ONE VIABLE third party candidate.

Let me see if I can explain from my point of view... Sometimes it helps to think of a really extreme example.

OK, let's suppose that ALL (meaning 100%) of the Republicans do NOT vote for the Republican incumbent... Instead, they either vote for the Democratic challenger or one of the dozen 3rd party candidates.

Well, what would happen?

What would happen is that the Republican incumbent would get 0% of the vote... All votes would be distributed among the Democratic and 3rd party challengers... So, this would mean that either the Democratic challenger would get elected or one of the 3rd party challengers would get elected.

But either way, the incumbent lost... This is the goal of www.VOIDnow.com .. They just want to "throw the bumbs out.".. They just want the incumbents to lose.

Does this make sense?.. If it doesn't make sense to you, then that's probably because I'm the only Martian on my block

To me, it seems like it would work... And because someone created a whole website dedicate to this, I'm assuming they must have thought about this quite a bit before they put it together... So, this gives me a boost of confidence... I've been sort of advocating this idea of "throwing the bumbs out" for awhile now... So, I was excited to come across this site.

Lost a MARTIAN???!!!! C'mon! You don't LOOK like a MARTIAN. You look a lot more like a MUMMY!

Okay--here's my problem with MULTIPLE third party candidates. It is true that it might accomplish the goal of getting rid of the INCUMBENTS BUT is that going to satisfy you?? I mean, do you REALLY want HILLARY to win the Presidency by DEFAULT?? NO, I KNOW you don't want THAT to happen. Do you want Kerry or Kennedy or Reid or some of the other off-the-chart Democrat to win their Senate seats? Of course not. That's why I think that having a BUNCH of third party candidates would only further muddy the waters. What we WANT is to actually ELECT a third party candidate because of the problems with BOTH of the major parties and that won't be accomplished if the field is full of third party candidates. It will just give the vote to the Democrat or challenger and leave us with the same mess we have--politicians that are BOUGHT and then SELL US OUT.

Bootsie, I don't want one of those crazies like Hillary or Kennedy... No, no, no!!!

But Harry Reid is not so bad, at least on 2 issues I really focus on... He gets a B- for a career record on immigration (though he's fallen off the wagon as of the last few years)... Also, he's tough on trade.

But ideally, I'd have someone like a Howard Coble, which I believe is your rep... Or on the Democratic side, a Peter DeFazio (from Oregon) who's very tough on immigration and trade.

Both Howard Coble and Peter DeFazio are in the 2 main parties... Indeed, the fact that these 2 independent individuals resists the pressures of their party leadership to do the right thing really shows their commitment and focus on the interests of the citizenry.

The parties are just composed of people... There's nothing intrinsically bad about the parties.

But I know what you mean... Our choices in the 2 main parties are generally not that good... We usually only have the lesser of 2 evils from which to choose for any given office.

But there's one good thing we can always count on, which is that politicians want to get re-elected... If we always kick out of office any politician who does a bad job, then the politicians will learn that they need to focus on the citizens' interests to get re-elected.

Indeed, if we really start to kick a lot of these people out, then I think we'd all be surprised at how quickly the Congress Cowards would quiver and lick our feet, whereas they used to just ignore us with their noses raised in the air.

The reason why the Congress Cowards often ignore the people's will is that the feel they have to bow to their corporate sponsors to get the campaign donations to pay for the campaign ads, so they can get out the base in their carefully gerrymandered districts.

At least, that's one reason... But regardless of why they ignore our wishes, we can get them to heel, if they know they will be humiliated at the polls for doing a lousy job... This is because politicians are people who really like their cushy jobs.

Howard Coble, who is MY MAN, is a very good example of why I wouldn't support a field of many third party candidates. If I bought into the complete theory of VOIDnow, I would have to vote for someone OTHER than Howard Coble and I would NEVER do that. See the problem in pledging to oust EVERY incumbent???

I really don't know that much about Reid except that I just don't feel like he's made a good minority leader. I liked him BEFORE--what little I knew about him anyway. But, since becoming minority leader, he just seems to want to stir up trouble or go out on a limb or on tangents about every little thing that the opposition says or does. He needs to learn to PICK HIS BATTLES!

That's a good point about wanting to keep Howard Coble.

I guess the idea of www.VOIDnow.com is to think of Congress as one unit and just put pressure on the reps by taking away votes from incumbents until the Congress as a whole starts to get going in the right direction.

But perhaps, it would be better if VOIDnow emphasized some sort of exception to the rule for the few members of Congress who are really doing a good job.

I would certainly vote for Coble... But I do like the idea of getting rid of incumbents (anyway, anyhow) who are NOT doing a good job... I think if people followed this strategy, then Congress would eventually come around to seeing things our way on a lot more issues... They would stop focussing so much on the corporate support, when they began to realize that the only thing that's keeping them in office is the public support.

So, that brings us to a fork in the road! It is a good plan to take a stand on letting our politicians know that we are no longer going to just vote for them because of name recognition. They need to get it that we are really watching how they are REPRESENTING us. I just think that VOIDnow needs to tweak their proposal and to rethink their positions. There is just no way that I could buy into what they are asking hook, line and sinker because it would be dishonest of me to say that I would not vote for ANY incumbent. I'm sure there are OTHER INCUMBENTS like Howard Coble who really DO represent their constituents and I would be hypocritical to say that I would use a threat like voting against EVERY incumbent.

We KNOW there is a major problem with the CURRENT two-party system. What worked for hundreds of years has just come to the point that it doesn't work anymore because the majority of the elected officials from both parties have destroyed the system. Like I said--Bush has given this country a GIFT in the form of UNITING us AGAINST the status quo. And, what we REALLY want is for a strong third-party candidate to actually have a chance at the Presidency.

If you think about their position, you will realize that by issuing this threat, all the politicians are going to do is give lip service to the demands of their constituents just long enough to win reelection and, once elected, they will go right back to doing whatever THEY want to do. That's the problem I have right now with most of the candidates that have been mentioned as potential candidates. The closer they get to election time, the more they APPEAR to move towards the center. I for one am NOT going to forget where they have been all along! That dog just won't hunt.