His name will not be printed on the ballot here in North Carolina come Tuesday.But all the same: I have just today chosen to make a write-in vote for Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party for President when I go to the poll in a few days.
And if you have not done early voting already, I'm asking you to consider choosing Baldwin also.
In the past few days I toyed around with the idea of not voting at all. Why? Because in my own way that would be making a statement about how completely broken the political process has become. I never thought I'd ever see a Senate race in North Carolina get any uglier than it has in past years... but in the last week Elizabeth Dole proved me wrong. And I am still sticking to the policy I declared months ago: that I will not vote for any candidate who runs a single negative ad.
Friends persuaded me that I still need to let my voice be heard. Until this afternoon that meant casting votes for just three people on the ballot.
And now, even though I will have to write him in, Chuck Baldwin will join those three.
I don't necessarily agree with Dr. Baldwin on everything, but I do have all the faith and trust in the world that of the candidates running for President, he is the only one who has eloquently articulated and demonstrated a sincere understanding of the Constitution of the United States.
And through his many writings over the years, Dr. Baldwin has proven that he has an earnest desire to adhere to the Constitution. That is not something that can ever be said of John McCain, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, or George Bush Sr.
"But Chris, you're wasting your vote! You're throwing it away! You're only letting (INSERT NAME OF CANDIDATE YOU CHOOSE TO HATE HERE) win that much easier!"
Bullcrap.
A vote made out of earnest conscience is never a "wasted vote". And a vote that results from critical analysis and personal integrity, regardless of which candidate it is cast in favor of, cannot possibly be a "thrown-away vote".
If nothing else, I see it as an affirmation of the power of that most despised minority of all: the individual.
So it is that on Tuesday I will affirm the authority that the Founding Fathers clarified and which so many have fought and even died that I might yet enjoy, and cast my own vote for the one man that I can honestly say not only deserves the responsibility of being President, but also my trust.
And I will sleep very soundly indeed, knowing that unlike too many others, I will not have voted for merely "the lesser evil"... which is still evil.
I'm voting for Chuck Baldwin. And I will gladly do so come Tuesday morning.
4 comments:
Good for you Chris. This is why I like you so much. I did however cast my vote for one of the three printed names on the ballot last Saturday but now I wish I had waited and cast a vote for Baldwin as well but I just did not think about it. Even though when I went in to vote I requested a list of "qualified" WI candidates and it took them almost 20 minutes to understand and find what I was asking for.
I had already voted. I won't say who I voted for - I believe in a sense of privacy when it comes to elections.
But I will say I voted for neither Obama nor McCain. Like you Chris, I believe in voting for the best man..not for the one that is most likely to win.
I did not waste my vote. I think I'll sleep soundly Tuesday evening.
If you guys want to meet me in a parking lot somewhere, I'll see if I can find you some lances and windmills.
"If you guys want to meet me in a parking lot somewhere, I'll see if I can find you some lances and windmills."
I've shared this story before, but maybe now's a good time to do so again...
One day Martin Luther was taking a walk through his town, when he came across a mob of commoners raiding the village storehouse. He asked them what they were doing.
"We're taking food!" they told him.
Luther replied that they should stop and return to their homes.
"Why?" they demanded. "God doesn't want us to be hungry!"
"No, I don't know if God doesn't want you to be hungry... but I do know that God wants you to be honest," Luther answered.
There are more important things than "being on the winning side" in something that in the eternal scheme of things is so mundane as an election.
But I do know that God would want us to act according to a good conscience, as opposed to acting according to our own appetites.
We've been acting out of hunger and lust for a very long time. Are we any better for it?
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