I have officially become an "under count".

[Hazcat]

With Thompson out I have officially become an under count for POTUS.

I will not vote for the lesser of two evils as the lesser is still evil.

I will not vote to move the Republican party further left, that is not my philosophy.

I will not be fooled by a ticket with a 'conservative' VP because it will just be a bait and switch to get the conservative vote.

I will not vote to continue this death by 1000 cuts that the Republican party has been foisting upon us for at least 8 years.

The Senate and Congress vote has become much more important and of course local is alway important.

I will not vote because the party has taken me for granted for too long so I will now write them off and become an independent.

I am a conservative first last and always and will only vote my conscience not what is forced upon me as a "choice" when in all reality there is none.

[joemerchant24]

While I sympathize, not voting is the wrong tactic.

Not voting for the Republican is a little hurtful.

But you're also not voting for the opponent.

This year, vote third party (I don't care which one).

Help me send a message to Mike Duncan and the other GOP honchos that the gun culture is not their bitch any more. From now on, if they want our vote they had damn well better give us a pro-gun candidate.

Staying home will not help us in 2010. Don't waste your vote on mainstream or by not voting. Send a message with your third party vote.

[Hazcat]

Who is running in a third party that supports us?

[Bill Stryker]

IMO third party votes are a vote for the devil. They are wasted.

The important vote is for your Representative and Senator. Vote for the best 2A candidate not the party. There are 2A friendly Democrats just as there are non gun friendly Republicans. We can use all the 2A Democrats we can get.

[joemerchant24]

It doesn't matter who's running third party. What matters is that the national GOP sees the surge and knows it's lost the gun vote.

As far as a wasted vote, as a gunowner, I consider a vote of support for Mitt, Rudy, McCain, Huck, Hilary, Obama, or Edwards to be a wasted vote.

A third party protest vote is not a waste. It's a message to the mainstream that we're sick of being taken for granted.

It's certainly less of a waste than staying home or voting for "the lesser of two evils." All that gets you is more evil next time.

[Sponsor]

[Hazcat]

Not a bad idea with a couple of "IFs".

IF we can all choose one candidate so the 'bump' will be more noticable and IF we can get the message to the party(R) that that is what happened.

[joemerchant24]

Centrist radio host Dan Carlin (www.dancarlin.com) proposed a few months back that we need to add a "none of the above" box to all ballots. That way, the national parties can see that there's, say 31% of voters who don;t like either candidate.

I'm not even sure we all need to back one 3P Pony.

If we can convine LaPierre, Zelman, Platt, Gottleib... any of the big political hitters to support our third party drive, then any overall bump in 3p votes will registers as gun culture dssatisfaction.

We need to, as a culture, take our guns and go to third party.

What's the margin of the past few elections been? 10%?

That means if we can make a 5% bump in the third party vote, we can represent a voting bloc large enough to sway the 2010 elections.

The upshot is that this could cause BOTH parties to shift our direction.

Look at the remaining candidates. We've already lost. There is not one mainstream candidate left who will protect us. On one gun board, there was someone actually trying to rationalize that "Maybe Rudy's not as bad as we think." That's what we've been reduced to by the GOP.

Look at the last to GOP presidents... Both have sold us out on gun rights. Who put both of them in the White House? The gun culture. we knew they had iffy track records on guns, but we "voted for the lesser of two evils" and look at what we got.

Now might be a good time to broach this topic with the NRA, GOA, JPFO, NSSF, CCRKBA, SAF and any other gun group. My guess is they'll never endorse the third party effort because they want to curry favor with whomever wins. They need to realize we've already lost our voice with the candidates. Whatever political power we still yield will still be there if we all go third party. Heck, by telling he GOP we're not gonna automatically vote for them it may increase our political power.

A lot of votes floating out in the ether can be a pretty powerful stick or carrot. Right now, it's a given the gun culture will vote "default GOP" as the lesser of two evils. One side writes us off as a loss, the other writes us off as a lock.

A shift to the third party will tell BOTH sides we're not gonna take their crap.

Shoot, if enough gunnies go third party... it may be enough to win a state or two.

[Hazcat]

As I said I think it is a good idea, but I think we should pick one and push him as far as we can.  It will then be much more obvious as to the "gun votes" that are out there.

I agree with you that the NRA has lost a lot of power as we saw no change at the national level re: laws when we had our best shot.

Got any links to those you mentioned above and how is their 2A stand?

[gunman42782]

I tell ya guys, I do not agree with everything the Libertarians stand for, but I am voting Libertarian this time.  They are 100% pro-gun, and they make no bones about it.  I have been a staunch Republican for years (at least since Reagan) but they blew it, and the current slate of candidates leave much to be desired.  I really do not see that there is any difference between Romney, McCain, and Hillary.  They are ALL anti-gun, and will show it if elected.

[scw78]

Hi everyone, my first post.  I'm glad to find like-minded people who are tired of voting for the "lesser of two evils". I could go with supporting a third party but I agree it would be better if we could get a large percentage of gun owners to vote together to show the effects of that bump.