Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

That video literally forced tears of laughter to roll down my cheeks.

The Onion was really on point this year and especially down the stretch. Comedic genius.

Check out some of their other hilarious stories:

• Black Guy Asks Nation for Change
• Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress
• Bush: ‘Can I Stop Being President Now?’
• Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job

It’s funny because it’s true.

Massachusetts Absentee Ballot

Photo credit to Andrew Teman.

Basically, Instant Runoff Voting [IRV] is a system of voting where candidates are ranked in order of preference by the voter. Depending on the particular IRV system you can either rank as many or as few candidates as you wish or you must rank all candidates. In either case, once all ballots are cast, the candidate in the #1 spot on the ballot is awarded one vote. After all the ballots are analyzed and added up, if any one candidate has a majority of the votes (e.g. more than half), then he/she is declared the winner.

However, if not candidate receives a majority of votes then the lowest ranked candidate on each ballot is eliminated and the votes are redistributed to the remaining candidates. This process continues until one candidate has a majority of the votes cast. Like any system, IRV is not perfect, but I believe it would be an upgrade over the electoral college system and allow more candidates a realistic chance at winning, and thus increase competition which helps everyone.

My Instant Runoff Voting Ballot

If we had an Instant Runoff Voting system in place in the United States today, here is how my ballot would likely look:

1. Ralph Nader & Matt Gonzalez
2. Chuck Baldwin & Darrell Castle
3. Barack Obama & Joe Biden
4. Cynthia McKinney & Rosa Clemente
5. Bob Barr & Wayne Allen Root
6. John McCain & Sarah Palin

So let’s run through my thought process. First, all candidates were ranked to ensure that my ballot counted through each round. If my ballot only ranked two parties, let’s say Nader-Gonzalez first and Baldwin-Castle second, then if more than two rounds of run-offs were needed to get a majority winner my ballot would become exhausted and no longer add support for either Gonzalez nor Castle.

In terms of actual candidates, McCain-Palin were ranked last because they are my least preferred presidency. Next, Barr-Root are ranked second to last because frankly, I find them to be highly disingenuous and highly suspect they are Republicans masquerading as libertarians. Bob Barr ran a poor campaign and alienated those who were most likely to support him while WAR (Wayne Allen Root) comes across as someone who does not do any research and instead blindly lambasts the government for everything. If WAR is so against government he should not be running for a government job. Next up are McKinney and Clemente, who would be my number two choice but neither seem qualified to lead. McKinney, as noted in my review of her, is brash, abrasive and arrogant, which are not the traits of a good leader.

Next I place Obama-Biden. Biden scares me, but the one aspect of Barack Obama we all must admit is that he runs one hell of a tightly organized campaign. I do not agree with many of his stances, and believe he is too closely aligned with corporate interests, but Obama does have the ability to motivate a large group of people and get his message across efficiently. He might not be my first choice for president, but I’m glad he’s an American citizen and not running for president of some other country. Next up I ranked Baldwin-Castle, purely because they come across as genuine and seem willing to compromise and co-operate. I also consider myself somewhat of a fiscal conservative which aligns closely with Baldwin’s fiscal plans. Finally, I ranked Nader-Gonzalez as my top choice for president because I agree with nearly all of his stances, especially his socially liberal and progressive platform. Check out my top ten reasons I’m voting for Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez post for more details about the choice.

So there you have it, what would your Instant Runoff Voting ballot look like?

No word yet on whether C-SPAN will cover tonight’s debate (my guess is they’ll end up covering it at the last minute) but there will be a free live video stream at They Will Be Heard at 9 PM (Eastern), so make sure you check it out! Proletariat Power will also live-blog the debate, much like they did with the presidential debate on October 23rd. It’s nice to see that the third part candidates have begun setting up their own debates, perhaps next time they can do so before the major parties and get a head start on getting their message heard.

There was also a presidential debate this past Thursday, October 30th between Constitution candidate Chuck Baldwin, Indepedent candidate Ralph Nader, and Libertarian candidate Bob Barr at the City Club in Cleveland Ohio. You can check out the full one hour video of the debate at We Demand Videos!

Vote third party!

I’m glad that a debate will occur, as I was actually thinking of withdrawing my vote for Nader if he was not able to debate someone, my thinking being that if you can’t get a debate going, how could you ever manage a country? Now, I know this debate is not organized by Mr. Nader and that he has a campaign to run but in my opinion the best thing for Ron Paul and Ralph Nader would have been to spend some of those megabucks raised by money bombs and fundraising on getting a new debate going counter to the mainstream, corporate owned debates.

Hopefully Cynthia McKinney is able to show up at the debates tonight too, though Bob Barr has stated numerous times he will not attend due to a prior engagement at Georgia Tech. Honestly, if I was in charge of the Barr event at GT, I’d cancel it and encourage him to attend the debate, but perhaps that’s why I’m not running a campaign…

In either case, tune in tonight to C-SPAN or head on over to Restore the Republic Radio for a live web stream of the event.

So far Ralph Nader, Chuck Baldwin and Cynthia McKinney have confirmed their attendance. Bob Barr is stating he has a scheduling conflict, though the even organizers are stating he wants to only debate Ralph Nader. In either case, Barr is running a very odd campaign, first ditching uber-popular Ron Paul and now refusing to participate in a debate with his fellow third party candidates.

Right now there are actually two debates scheduled, on being an online debate this Sunday from 7pm to 9pm while the other is a physical debate starting at 8pm. Seeing as how the physical debate is being televised by CSPAN and moderated by Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman it seems the online only debate organized by Trevor Lyman will fall to the wayside, especially seeing as how only Cynthia McKinney has confirmed she’d participate.

In either case, three of the four candidates will be at the physical debate, hosted by The Free and Equal Elections Coalition and the Columbia Political Union. So confused yet by the varying debates and times and places? Well so are the candidates who are now waffling about whether they will or will not attend, even though three of them confirmed their attendance a few days ago. In either case, the debate is scheduled and set up and now it’s up to the candidates to show up. For the sake of progress for our democracy, let’s hope they do show up. Send e-mails to your candidates encouraging them to show up! Even Barack Obama and John McCain are invited, let’s have one debate between all six candidates!

10 Reasons I’m Voting for Ralph Nader & Matt Gonzalez

1. Universal Health Care.

The argument over whether socialism is good or bad does not matter. Our government has already decided it will act as a socialist entity with Medicare, Social Security, bank bailouts and endless other infiltrations into the free market. To not provide universal health care is to openly admit we do not care about the well being of our citizens. This strategy must come to an end. As one of the richest countries in the world, we cannot afford to not provide our citizens guaranteed access to health care.

2. End to all wars.

The money to pay for universal health care and other infrastructure and development projects, within the U.S.A., will come from the savings of bringing every soldier home. Currently, more than half of every discretionary dollar spent by the U.S. government goes to military funding. Simply put, we are spending too much money killing people and not enough helping them.

3. End to corporate personhood.

I have railed against corporate personhood before and truly believe it is one of the reasons we are seeing the manufactured economics crises today. Many people do not realize that corporations are legally viewed as people, just the same as you and me. Corporations twisted the law freeing slaves to force corporate personhood and it’s time we end this disgrace. Corporations are not people.

4. Impeach Bush and Cheney.

Impeachment is simply an analysis of whether the President and Vice-president committed crimes. So far, our politicians will not even debate whether we should debate if crimes were committed, eventhough Bush and Cheney openly and flagrantly admit to committing multiple crimes against our citizens, government and world.

5. National Initiative.

Perhaps the greatest of the Nader – Gonzalez plaform, the National Initiative would allow regular American citizens to petition and demand change from the government easily and reliably. A strong democracy is one where citizens may easily redress the government when it creates laws to benefit the few and harm the many.

6. Energy Policy.

Hands down the best energy policy of any presidential candidate. The Nader platform looks forward to the future to realize that we must act now to invest in and install clean, efficicent renewable forms of energy such as wind and solar power. Doing so will create new manufacturing jobs and break our need for dirty and expensive forms of energy such as nuclear, coal and oil.

7. Fair Tax.

Are you sick of hearing about corporate loop holes that allow big businesses to pay no taxes while half your paycheck goes to Uncle Sam? Me too. Ralph Nader realizes how broken our tax system has become and offers the fair tax which would close corporate loopholes and begin taxing negative things we do not want, such as pollution, to discourage the negative and encourage people to work and earn money.

Makes a lot more sense than our current system.

8. Ballot Access.

Currently each state in the union has their own ballot access laws, creating a stressful and chaotic scene where it is often a battle in and of itself for viable candidates to gain access to the ballot. Nader-Gonzalez propose one standard for all the states to ensure all candidates have fair access to the ballot, thus providing citizens with greater choice and creating greater competition amongst candidates, thus helping our democracy for everyone.

9. Open the debates.

Currently, we allow a private corporation to host debates between two political parties and allow this private corporation to ban other viable candidates from the debate. We cannot say we live in a democracy when we prevent candidates from having a seat at the table.

10. Federal Budget.

The Nader-Gonzalez campaign describes it perfectly:

The United States needs a redirected federal budget that adequately funds crucial priorities like infrastructure, transit and other public works, schools, clinics, libraries, forests, parks, sustainable energy and pollution controls. The budget should move away from the deeply documented and criticized (by the US General Accounting Office, retired Admirals and Generals and others) wasteful, redundant “military industrial complex” as President Eisenhower called it, as well as corporate welfare and tax cuts for the wealthy that expand the divide between the luxuries of the rich and the necessities of the poor and middle class.

Yes, rebuild America!

These are my reason for voting for Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez in the 2008 presidential elections. The points I’ve outlined above are the ten of most important points to the future sustainability of this country and are clearly above and beyond any platform stance of any other presidential candidate. Simply put, the Nader-Gonzalez platform is not only good but also correct.

Do yourself and your country a favor and vote for Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalelez in 2008.