Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been thinking about this for a while now…

Dear Skippy.

We hope that you know that among all the bloggers of the world, you are among our most favored. Your political insights and commentary so often mirror what we are thinking that often we don’t see the point of writing on a subject after you have discoursed on it. This election year (in the US) has not been different than past election years in that respect. We, like you, have thought from early on that Romney will be the nominee. We have also believed, as you have that President Obama will win re-election. This is not due to his deserving to be re-elected; but due to Romney and the Republicans being so pathetic.

We have read and taken to heart your many exhortations (including the latest one) that we should vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson for President of the United States. After much consideration, we have decided that we could, in good conscience, cast our vote for Governor Johnson. He is a sensible Libertarian, and although we don’t agree with him on all the issues - as if we have ever agreed with every candidate on all the issues, he does have a reasonable plan for addressing the most pressing problems facing the United States today.

This is a big step for us. We normally don’t believe in voting for 3rd party candidates in national elections. We believe that voting for the 3rd party candidate is not a “protest” vote in a meaningful sense but more “throwing one’s vote away.” This year though, the two major party candidates just aren’t doing it for us. So we have thought long and hard about voting for Governor Johnson.

But then a crazy thing happened to our home state of Virginia four years ago. For the first time in our life, Virginia went for a Democrat in a Presidential election. Virginia awarded her electoral votes to Barack Obama in 2008. Now, in 2012 it looks like Virginia is a “swing state.”

We wouldn’t need to see a talking head on some cable news program to tell us we are living in a swing state. We’ve lived it for nearly a year now. You can’t turn on the TV or radio (or often the interwebs) without being bombarded with political ads.

You know, for years we’ve wanted to see all the attack ads and know what it is like to be a contested marketplace. Now we’re wishing we could go back to the days when the only time you saw a political ad was when it was highlighted on the news or when you went looking for it on the interwebs. It has been hell. The ads are maddening in their omnipresence. It is enough to drive a man to drink (much more than he normally does).

So, Virginia is a swing state. For the first time in our lifetime, our vote actually does mean something (Presidentially speaking). Now we find we are faced with a major problem. Do we cast our vote for a deserving man (Gary Johnson) who has no chance of winning or cast our vote for Romney or Obama in hopes that our vote does affect the outcome of the national election.

We know that the press are reporting that (alternately) Virginia is very close or the President is slightly ahead. According to information we’re getting from people who have access to internal polling from the various campaigns, everything is within the margin of error of any poll.

If we thought that Virginia was going solidly for either Romney or Obama, we’d vote for Gary Johnson. But this year it seems to be a more prudent course to use the lesser of the evils approach to casting our vote. Although we don’t think it will help him in the broader Electoral picture, we will likely vote for Romney. He is not our first (or second or probably third - okay he is our second choice actually) choice; but he is a better choice than voting to re-elect President Obama. And just so you know, even using the lesser of two evils approach the choice between Romney and Obama is an unpleasant one. Neither man has a serious plan for directly addressing the most serious problems facing the US. But one man has had nearly four years to work on those problems and has pretty much fucked it up at every opportunity. So, perhaps change is the best course.

We’re actually quite disappointed that it has come to this. But there it is. We’re pretty much screwed no matter how we vote; but it is wiser to do it this way than any other.

Cordially,

Your Maximum Leader

PS - if you are ever down our way, you have an open invitation at the Villainschloss.

So there you have it.

Sad.

Carry on.