Let the "Why I'm not voting for Obama" #yawnFest begin.

So I'm starting to see the left critique of Obama articles circulate on Facebook.  Most of them are bunk for one simple reason they do not connect the actual problem with an actual solution.

With no mention of  movement building, running for local office, infiltration of politics by human beings in their communities and all fixation on what Leader X, Y, or Z did or didn't over the past 4 years is simply setting up an equation that says "I need a better master." Rather than the more appropriate--> we need to be running things better and I have to be a part of that equation.  

We need to be doing it ourselves; rather than waiting for permission from on high.  We need to be working to build political power locally that can undermine the 1% and those who do their bidding at the local level.  These things remains true no matter who you decide to vote for on the least important/impactful question you will be offered on your ballot no matter where you live this coming November.

We have systemic challenges and they require systemic reforms to fix the issue--who you vote for will not address the actual problems our democracy face.

When I ran for State Senate in 2010 I put a big priority putting a spotlight on implementing Instant Run Off Voting here in Georgia for a reason--it ends the lesser of two evils phenomena.  It was a systemic reform that would address a poor outcome our current process is creating. The "vote for better people" argument is a cop-out.

***Full Disclosure on the trivially small act of voting***

Here is my heuristic on voting for President. 

Let me be clear that this is just my take, that I have and will continue to use in the future; and not a judgement on others who may look at their local situation in a different manner.  Far too much energy is focused on Presidential votes, which have the least impact so I'm not looking to get into an online battle over the tactics of how I spend my 30min's on a Tuesday in November every 4 years in the least important (read: my vote has the least impact on the outcome) question on my ballot. 

My rule of thumb, If you live in a state that experts consider a toss up; that will be purely won or lost on GOTV efforts--vote lesser of two evils as there is too much at stake to empower GOP'ers in Congress.  If you live in a state that is clearly going one way or the other vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein and quickly move on to the more important down ballot races.  

If you don't have a "choice" in one of those down ballot races you may have found the perfect place to insert your name into two/four years from now.  As we need more political actors in this world and fewer "voters."

I'm only posting/tweeting this once and moving on to more important issues or else @EricTheTeamster will come beat me up.

To my friends who are passionate about winning over people to your "not voting for Obama" platform:  Rather than spending a lot of time bashing Obama why not identify some local politician who will introduce IRV in your state so that we don't have to deal with this issue ever four years...