Aren't elections about having choices?

When I go to the poll on Election Day here in Oklahoma, I will have two choices for US president--Barack Obama or John McCain. There will be no other presidential candidates. There's not even a place for me to write in the name of my little cat.

Given those choices, I'm going to vote for Barack Obama. I might wish he were more radical. I'm definitely disappointed that he felt he needed to disown his former pastor Jeremiah Wright. But Obama is clearly a better candidate than John McCain.

But no matter what I do, Oklahoma seems certain to give its seven electoral votes to McCain. Given that McCain is unacceptable to me, there is no reason to worry about giving my vote to his most electable opponent. I would like to have some other choices.

If I had the choice to do so, I would vote for Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney. I've said this before, and I'll probably say it again--if the Democrats don't get any criticism or competition from the left, they will drift further and further to the right.

Here's another situation in which political opponents are working together for a common goal. OBAR Ballot Access Reform for Oklahoma is working to gain access to the Oklahoma Ballot for so-called minor parties. Sounds like a darned good idea to me.

Of course, there are also activists within the Democratic party who are working to make that party less conservative and more accountable to its activist base. See the post directly below.