Plum Crazy

I've read a lot of people lately bemoan the fact that many Kerry voters seem to be voting against Bush, not for Kerry. I've also seen a lot of "endorsements" of Bush, incidentally, that read a lot more like a vote against Kerry than a vote for Bush, but few people bemoaning that fact. Mostly, I suspect, because Kerry isn't the incumbent. Were the situations reversed, I'm sure these stats would be reversed as well.

Nonetheless. Just what the hell is wrong with voting against one of the two major candidates? Why is this pumped up like it's some horrid ethical lapse? It's not. Pretend that you're a businessman for a moment. You have this employee whom you think is doing a really lousy job. Do you wait to fire the guy just because you haven't found someone you think would do a great job? Some of you might say "Yes. I'd wait until I found the right guy for the job." In some circumstances, you might. In others, you wouldn't. It would, in large part, depend on how lousy a job you thought the guy was doing.

But now let's add a constraint to the problem. You only get one shot to fire the guy on one specific day. You can't just fire him any time you like. You have to wait until the first Tuesday of every fourth November. If you don't fire him then, you're required to keep him around for another four years. Given that set of circumstances, do you not fire him because you don't have another candidate you think is great? Of course not. That would be inefficient. You fire him.

Let's add another two constraints to the problem. Not only can you fire the guy on just one specific day, but you have a limited number of replacement candidates to choose from, none of whom you had any great say in selecting. You decide that one of the replacement candidates wouldn't do a great job but would still be better than the current guy. You also need to fill this position. You can't just leave it empty. Do you not fire the current guy and replace him with the better, albeit not great, candidate? Come on. Of course you do. So you don't love the replacement candidate. Your major concern is not how much you should love the replacement, but how bad a job you think the incumbent is doing. At the moment, this is what affects your business most. Sure, you might be wrong about the replacement doing a better job. You won't know for sure until you hire him. But you might be right. If you think the incumbent is doing a bad enough job, you're going to take that risk, rather than suffer the known consequences to your business.

Would it be better to hire a replacement you think would do a great job? Of course. But like it or not, these are the basic constraints we face on Election Day. You don't have to like them (I don't), but they are real. So please stop whining about people voting against one of the candidates*. It's not like we can fire the President whenever we want.

*I find this whining quite ironic when it comes from the same people who consider those of us who like to vote third party to have "wasted" our votes. Really, if voting against one of the two major candidates is a sad statement on anything, it's a sad statement on the crap our two major parties serve up to us. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Those who criticize voting against a major candidate and voting for a third party are people to whom there is only one right answer - their answer. Thanks, but not interested.