The Free and Equal Elections Foundation second open-party presidential debate with Jill Stein and Gary Johnson, originally planned for today in Washington D.C., has been postponed until November 5th, due to the hurricane.

In the meantime, here are a few perspectives on the merits of voting for Barack Obama:

● Chris Hedges at TruthDig:
Why I’m Voting Green

● Lawrence O'Donnell on The Last Word (video):
"take a good long look at third-party candidates"

● Matt Stoller at Salon:
The progressive case against Obama
(the author has been fiercely criticized for this article and even accused of racism, an accusation Glenn Greenwald dismantles here)

● At Black Agenda Report:
Freedom Rider: Not Voting for Obama

● At Translation Excercises blog (recommended by Glenn Greenwald):
The Progressive Retreat from Obama: Who is to Blame?

gonna be at the roanoke

Why does anyone think that anything other than Eyman's initiative will be decided Tuesday night? We'll be lucky to have a governor by Thanksgiving.

Just for kicks-planning, what is the official capacity of the Showbox?

where is the R74 party?

On a good election night (2008), I've never been happier to be out among a large crowd of people, drinking.

On a bad election night (2004), I've never been happier to be at home, alone, drinking.

I'll be there. Come early if you're attending. The line was literately around the block on 2008 and I'm thinking a bunch of people were turned back. It'll be standing-room only, pretty much, if it's anything like last time. If it looks like Obama's gonna win and you're near the stage, know you'll probably end up baptized with champagne before the night's over. If you're cute and available, you'll probably find the field to be rather favorable. I had a gay guy try to pick me up. Sadly for both of us, I'm not.

All I gotta say, Obama better pull this puppy out. 'Cause if he doesn't, and I have to stand there in front of a big red map with the realization that Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, health care reform, the EPA, the Department of Education, friggin' FEMA, unemployment insurance, student loans, Wall Street reform, consumer protection, voting rights - all this crap we've fought for and won since FDR and will now be going away... I'm going to need somebody to hold me back from jumping into Puget Sound. And that's all I'm gonna say. If, after all these months of Romney acting like a turd in the primaries and the debates and hiding things and not answering questions and giving recycled speeches that could have come from a computer program and putting on that cardboard smile on him - if after all that, America still elects him... we deserve what we get, man.

The future hasn't been written yet, people! There's still time!

@3 It was settled that way on primary night.

@1 O'Donnell is strongly behind the president, watch his show.

I would love to come, but Mr, Vel-DuRay and I always host a neighborhood Election Night Party/Lap Supper (I know that sounds dirty. That's why I like it)

Soup and salad, warm dinner rolls, hot coffee, and LOTS of booze. It's sedate, but there are those of us who love that sort of thing. If Obama wins, it will be a delightful Cole Porter-esque evening of frivolity and well-placed bon mots. If Romney wins, it will be the movie version of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

@9: Watch O'Donnell's show? That link is to a video clip from his show. Let's watch that.

I think it's safe to say O'Donnell is strongly behind the opinion he personally expressed in that segment.

Namely, he believes people in swing states should vote with caution, and those in non-swing states should feel free to vote for a candidate who more closely represents their own values (such as one who opposes indefinite detention).

From the clip:

Well Congress did pass that law last year [NDAA], and President Obama signed it, and he never mentioned it on his list of accomplishments, in any of the debates. And he was never asked about it -- not by the media's second favorite debate moderator, Candy Crowley, and not by Mitt Romney. It never came up at the two-party presidential debates. No one pressed the president on how he could possibly sign a bill like that into law, and no one pressed Mitt Romney about why repealing that law is not on his day-one list.

If that law worries you -- if it concerns you in any way -- your concern, your interest in that law, is not represented by either of the two major parties. But at last night's debate, that law was called the "very definition of tyranny".

[...]

If, like most Americans, you live in one of the states where the outcome is predetermined, you should feel absolutely free to take a good long look at third party candidates, and pick one whose ideas you want to encourage. Your vote for the Libertarian or the Green Party will not affect the outcome in state where the president or Mitt Romney has a big lead. But your vote will say something important about what you believe.

[...]

Having spent my lifetime in states irrelevant to the electoral college, I have mostly, in fact, voted for third party candidates for president. And I was always told I was wasting my vote. When I voted for Democrats for president who lost, I was never told I was wasting my vote.

I've actually voted for the winner of the presidency: exactly once. So please don't try to tell me that voting for a candidate who loses is wasting a vote in a democracy.

The other pieces I linked to go even further, and recommend that progressives vote for progressive candidates (i.e. Stein or Anderson) where ever they may live.

FYI: Washington is not a swing state.

#3

Probably right.

No doubt all the votes behind the radiator will delay the count.

Oh my god no. I've had it with parties and politics. I will have my little party at home with my roommate and non-slogging friends and then go to bed drunk and crying and wake up, at worst, at least knowing the world is fucked.

Massive early turn in of ballots in King County means MANY statewide elections will be decided next week.

So there will be some clear results.

Especially if you send your ballot in NOW.

As to what massive means, 1/3 of all ballots issued are already in and verified for King County.

We'll be having the same great party we always have at Neumos and Moe Bar. I don't know if y'all were there 4 years ago when after Obama declared victory 10,000+ took to the streets in Capitol Hill having the time of their lives. It was nothing but pure positivity. I'm looking for the same again, although we may not know about the Presidential Election, hopefully we'll know about some very important local elections.

Hope to see ya there.