Given the field, I consider it a foregone conclusion that Haslam will win a second term as Governor of Tennessee. Voting to affect the outcome of the election is therefore meaningless. One should thus vote (or not vote) based on other factors. It's sad when your vote is basically a confidence poll or protest vote, but that's what we have today.
It's important to remember that there are four constitutional amendments on the ballot as well, and the the number of votes cast for Governor has direct effect on the threshold for passing those amendments. That adds a strategic element to whether you should vote for governor at all! If you support the amendments on the ballot, voting for anyone in the governor's race actually hurts you; it raises the bar for passing an amendment.
So if you're in favor of all amendments, don't vote for governor at all; there's no point. If you're opposed to all amendments, vote for someone. And if you're split among the amendments, well, that makes life more complicated.
Bill Haslam (Republican)
Essentially seems to be running on the platform "I am Bill Haslam". As I've said before, the state hasn't disintegrated, but neither has it accepted billions of dollars that would help many people in this state have affordable medical care. I wouldn't be excited to vote for him.
Charles V "Charlie" Brown (Democratic)
He's got a better picture than before, but he still has no website or obvious campaign statements of any kind I maintain he won his primary because a lot of Democrats voted for the first name on the ballot. The only reason I can think of to vote for this candidate is if you're a really big fan of the Democratic party, and even then, I'm not sure that's a good reason.
Shaun Crowell (Constitution)
Opposes Common Core, spreading a fraction of the usual misinformation about it. (Not that you can't reasonably oppose common core. Just that you shouldn't believe convoluted math problems are part of it, because they're not.) He'd shut down Haslam's free tuition program for community colleges. He's in favor of the Bundy family. Surprisingly, he's in favor of unions if the workers want to have them, so this guy is not a Republican. But he's not in favor of accepting ACA money to pay for Tennesseans' health care.
Now, since he's not going to win, Crowell's specific positions may not be as important to you as those of his party. If you're not familiar with the Constitution Party, you can find out more about them here and here. They're on the right side of a number of important issues that the major parties ignore, like asset forfeiture. But they also want to move to a "debt-free interest-free money system" which I'm pretty sure is impossible. They want to phase out social security. They want to make abortion illegal in cases of rape. They want to outlaw pornography to protect free speech. And they oppose the idea of a constitutional convention, which is kind of funny since they think the founders were brilliant beyond criticism on every other issue...
This guy might be okay. But the party he represents is a little nuts.
Isa Infante (Green)
This candidate has zero detailed policy positions, so all you can evaluate is the Green Party itself. I'm not going to tell you I sorted through the entire national platform, it's crazy long, but I'm a fan of many of their positions. They have a detailed plank on election reform, which almost sounds like I wrote it, except that they're still supporting IRV instead of the far-superior approval voting. And they're still inscrutably opposed to nuclear power, letting perfect be the enemy of good. But in general, I'm a bigger and bigger fan of the Green Party. Unless, of course, there's some insanity buried in that platform that I'm missing.
Steven Damon Coburn (Independent)
He wants to "teach Biblical values in schools", judge and pay teachers entirely by their students' grades, and a number of other things that don't seem realistic or likely to actually improve the situation. He's a rambling sort (yeah, yeah, I'm one to criticize), and I don't see him being a good governor at all.
John Jay Hooker (Independent (but really a Democrat))
John Jay Hooker is a placeholder candidate. Voting for someone, as noted above, raises the bar for passing amendments. Hooker is on the ballot only to give Democrats someone to vote for besides Charlie Brown, so they won't just stay home. So I'd say vote for him if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy to vote Democrat, but you don't want to vote for Brown.
Daniel T. Lewis (Libertarian)
Typical Libertarian, nothing particularly striking here. (Though he does mention artificial wombs as a solution to the abortion rights impasse. I'm going to claim credit for that one; it was part of my platform as a Libertarian candidate in 2010.) Remember that the position of the Libertarian party is to reduce the size of government on every issue, in every way, whether it makes functional sense or not.
Summary
Your vote will have no impact on the outcome of this election, but turnout does help set the bar for amendments to pass. If you're in favor of the amendments passing, don't vote for governor at all. Otherwise, I'd recommend voting for Infante, the Green candidate, simply because the Greens seem to be the party of sanity.
No comments:
Post a Comment