Voting for a candidate in any general election is seen as a binary choice: cast your ballot for candidate A or candidate B. Sometimes you are voting FOR candidate A while strongly against candidate B and other times, more frequently than we like to admit, we are voting AGAINST candidate B and seem to have no choice but to vote for candidate A.
There is another choice that is often overlooked by the general citizen population: don’t vote for either. It happens often. Throughout the years, voters have been disgusted with their choices at the ballot box and have written in names of their neighbor, for Mickey Mouse, or for their favorite celebrities, sports stars, and superheroes that must have had the precinct workers smiling, laughing, or just plain rolling their eyes at. Batman was a very popular choice in 2016!
But back to the serious.
Conservative First strongly believe in the democratic process of voting even if the choices are less than ideal. Voting is one of the most important fundamental rights bestowed upon American citizens and both black Americans and then women have fought for those equal rights throughout the years. Just this week, President Trump issued a full posthumously pardon to Susan B. Anthony who was convicted and fined for voting in 1872. Men and women have fought tirelessly on the streets and on foreign lands to protect this fundamental right and Americans must continue to exercise it.
So while the candidates may not be up to par or are downright awful, Americans must vote in their local, state, and national elections even if they just write-in someone over the choices presented. Over the years, we have cast ballots for far too many bad candidates and wish we would have followed our advice given now.
Below is a partial list of the worst decisions we made at the ballot box.
‘It’s His Turn’
In 1996, we at Conservative First held our noses and voted for Senator Bob Dole for president. He wasn’t our first, second, or third choice that year. But we didn’t want to see four more years of Bill Clinton. So we cast our ballot for an elderly moderate senator who according to GOP party bosses, “it was his turn.” Result: major defeat. Regret Meter: 8/10.
‘The Maverick’
In 2008, our list of choices for president were scarce and overall less than impressive. Seeing Senator John McCain rack up primary victories was like watching paint dry. Just plain boring. The word from party bosses again was “it was his turn.” Senator McCain, it was said, was due because he ran for president in 2000 and many felt he was denied the first time around.
Outside the McCain family, a few friends, and Senator Lindsey Graham, just shy of 60 million citizens held their collective noses and voted for John McCain, though the reality is that millions voted FOR Sarah Palin and AGAINST Barack Obama. Result: historic electoral college defeat. Regret Meter: 10/10.
Editor Note: Cindy McCain, the widow of John McCain, appeared via video during the Democratic National Convention and threw her support behind Joe Biden for president. The regret meter just hit 11 and climbing.
Moderate Mitt
Four years later, things would be different right? The Tea Party descended onto Washington D.C. and into local town halls all across the fruited plain. Obamacare, shovel ready jobs that didn’t exist, and record monies paid to Solyndra and other hapless, failed “green” companies and pet projects created a swelling grassroots movement that would end with a crescendo on election night 2012 with President Obama being denied a second term.
Ah, but we forgot “whose turn” it was this time around. It was moderate Mitt Romney’s chance to fail. Despite claiming he was a conservative, he fought off the real conservative challengers (Cain, Santorum, Gingrich, Bachmann) to secure the nomination. Again, 60+ million voters went to the polls and cast their votes reluctantly for a man who as governor of Massachussetts laid the groundwork for Obamacare. We held our noses, rolled our eyes at the sight of Romney/Ryan on the ballot and voted more or less once again AGAINST President Obama. Result: closer than 2008 but another major defeat. Regret Meter: 9.5/10
Ohio’s Charlatan
The founders of Conservative First lived in Ohio before the organization was launched in 2014. The 2010 race for governor in the Buckeye State was between former congressman and Newt Gingrich acolyte John Kasich and the awful incumbent Ted Strickland. This political year was a wave election for the GOP. With the tea party grassroots movement leading the charge, Republicans were swept into office in one of the biggest political party victories in history. From races in the United States Senate to dogcatcher in the most rural counties in America, it was a monumental rejection of the brand of extreme progressive governance this country has seen in generations.
We voted for John Kasich who came out of political retirement to steer Ohio back from the brink. The beginning of his term as governor started out well with his support behind Senate Bill 5 (ultimately rejected by the people) which limited the collective bargaining rights of unions but he also expanded Medicare under Obamacare which angered many conservatives in Ohio. In 2014, we reluctantly voted for him again for reelection.
The past six years have become one big regret. Kasich supported the impeachment of President Trump. Pouring more salt into our political wounds, just this week, he spoke during the Democratic National Convention in support of Joe Biden. All those years of proclaiming to be a balance-budget fiscal conservative while chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee and being an advocate for the rights of the unborn were all a lie. How could they not be lies? To look into the camera this week and ask those watching (what little there were) to vote for the Democratic nominee who stands for nothing you supposedly stood for all these years is a disgrace. Shame on us for ever casting a ballot for this charlatan. Regret Meter: 10/10.
What do we have to show for voting for these frauds? Not only did we vote for political losers, some of these men are now actively supporting Joe Biden and advocating for the defeat of President Donald Trump. As you will read in a subsequent blog post, millions of Americans went to the polls to vote for these so called Republicans and the thanks we receive back from them is political treason.
We now realize we had another choice: the write-in candidate. Perhaps in hindsight, our conscience would now be clear having not voted for the frauds listed above and instead wrote in “Batman.” After all, Bruce Wayne, not the fictional Caped Crusader, but the Average Joe living in Wheeling, West Virginia or any other town or city in America, would have been a far better candidate than any of these cons who we terribly regret casting our vote for all these years later.
