I don’t know, but I’m working on it. I just started the process of thinking about the new President question this week. It really matters little to me that they have been posturing for a year a half already. My vote is going to be cast in about 40 days at the Michigan primary (Michigan is ludicrously moving their primary to January).
I have real reservations about the common Christian policy of voting for the candidate “with whom I don’t agree on everything but he has a real chance of winning”– especially in the primary. That is the fancy way of choosing the lesser of
two evils, and that is what we are doing in our minds, willingly settling for someone who is just ok. Choosing the lesser of evils is choosing someone who we really don’t want to be President. And often that President is leap years away from the man we would really like to see in office.
By degrees, that is a way to sully a nation. That is a way to, in short time, expect Presidents to be less and less righteous more and more kowtowing. We don’t understand that there are alternatives to voting for the lesser of two evils. Ethically it is called choosing the greatest good. We can choose to vote for President the man who best mimics our own ideals, who is the most capable, the best qualified. And please note that this does not qualify your uncle or your pastor simply because they share your ideals. He should be capable and he should be qualified. And at the same time, he probably should be someone who is at least able to make his voice known on the national stage–that is if he intends to be the President of the whole nation.
Christians are taught to base their lives on strict, unbending principles, and then sometimes friends encourage us to abandon all hope and vote for the most likely to win on election night, because, as the the reasoning goes, we don’t want THE DEVIL taking office. Perhaps it is too easy to disregard the Bible premise about authority that “promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.” My vote is most important to me, not to the final outcome. What I do in my heart on that election day is worth more than losing the whole election by even one vote.
In some ways, I feel like I am apologizing to so many Christians around me, but I’m not. I am saying that it matters little whether my candidate ends up in office, but at the same time shouting even more loudly that we are Americans, also. We have special sorts of freedoms in this country. And you had better not fatalistically abdicate your rights because you think it won’t matter. Your vote does matter. You are voting for righteousness’ sake.
It is not wasting a vote to vote for your conscience. It is not wasting your vote to vote for a third party if that is where the best candidate is. John Q. Adams has my back here. He said to, “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”
[...] For Whom Is the Vote Tallied? « To Be A Pilgrim convert this post to pdf. [...]
Thanks for you post on voting for the best candidate. We need to hear that from more people.
I recommend that you consider Ron Paul as you look at the choices. He’s the best small/limited government candidate that the Republicans have and he is pro-life, pro-gun, pro low taxes, pro school choice, etc. Some in our circles may be concerned by his foreign policy. I’ve written an article that may help with that at What is the Right Foreign Policy?.
Amen, Ryan! I actually prefer the primaries b/c I feel I can actually vote for the person I really feel deserves it (based on the character qualities you mentioned). Unfortunately I often feel I am voting for the lesser of two evils at the final election as I did a year or so ago in a governor race.
Thanks for sharing!
I found this comment by Michael Reagan, President Reagan’s son to be most informative.
“Unless I am very much mistaken, the people are fed up with candidates’ grandiose schemes to make Washington more efficient, the economy stronger, our foreign policy more effective or how they would handle illegal immigration matters. They have been hearing those un-kept promises for years. What they haven’t been hearing from the people who want their votes is the promise of a future where America reaches the full potential the founding fathers envisioned over 230 years ago—a nation where equal opportunity is available for all, where government is once again the servant of the people and not their master, where truth is more important than political correctness, where their hard-earned wages are not squandered on wasteful and foolish government programs, and where elected legislators and not unelected judges enact the laws. This is an America where principles, not programs, govern our lives and political activities. This is a shining city on the hill. The Republican candidates, for reasons I can’t fathom, cannot see that shining city, or if they can, are unable to explain what it would be like under their administration. On the Democratic side, there is no problem envisioning a future under their authority. Instead of envisioning a shining city on a hill, they see a Marxist municipality which on close inspection turns out to be just another one of those socialist slums which litter the garbage bin of history. If Republicans refuse to take the blinders off their eyes and look to a future in the shining city, they will lose the election next year, and the nation will begin its dreary trek to the socialist slums where everybody will have an equal opportunity to be miserable.” —Michael Reagan
I found this comment by Michael Reagan, President Reagan’s son to be most informative.
“Unless I am very much mistaken, the people are fed up with candidates’ grandiose schemes to make Washington more efficient, the economy stronger, our foreign policy more effective or how they would handle illegal immigration matters. They have been hearing those un-kept promises for years. What they haven’t been hearing from the people who want their votes is the promise of a future where America reaches the full potential the founding fathers envisioned over 230 years ago—a nation where equal opportunity is available for all, where government is once again the servant of the people and not their master, where truth is more important than political correctness, where their hard-earned wages are not squandered on wasteful and foolish government programs, and where elected legislators and not unelected judges enact the laws. This is an America where principles, not programs, govern our lives and political activities. This is a shining city on the hill. The Republican candidates, for reasons I can’t fathom, cannot see that shining city, or if they can, are unable to explain what it would be like under their administration. On the Democratic side, there is no problem envisioning a future under their authority. Instead of envisioning a shining city on a hill, they see a Marxist municipality which on close inspection turns out to be just another one of those socialist slums which litter the garbage bin of history. If Republicans refuse to take the blinders off their eyes and look to a future in the shining city, they will lose the election next year, and the nation will begin its dreary trek to the socialist slums where everybody will have an equal opportunity to be miserable.” —Michael Reagan
What a great article! Hope you don’t mind…I will be passing it along to many others. Someone we respect greatly challenged my husband and I to vote so our conscience may agree rather than for the “lesser of two evils” and that is how we will vote from now on. In God’s eyes…the most important view… that vote will never be a throw away!
You feel free to pass it along. Thanks for the note.