that it is better to vote for what you want and not get it than vote for what you don't want and get it.

much before the 2008 campaign. His actions during and after the Ned Lamont campaign in Conn. showed him to be the person he turned out to be. Of course his Senate voting record in 2007 and 2008 also reflected his true self.

here referring to this USA Today piece about “voters leaving the Democratic and Republican parties in droves” is an interesting complement to yours.

Just as some random thoughts:

1. I liked this comment over at Naked Capitalism:
   

   No! Vote now, forever, and always for exactly whomever you would like to see as President. That will make YOUR vote, YOUR wishes known. Doing so perhaps will end up getting Gingrich/Romney elected, but will also deny them a mandate. IOW, there will be a large percentage who, it is KNOWN, do not want them as President, and do not agree with their platform. And the damage will not be that great because, as we all seem to agree here, there is no particular difference between the Powers-vetted candidates of either of the parties.

   Then we all have to stay informed AND active between-times.

2. I've voted in all of the previous eight US Presidential elections and I can't recall a time when more people were talking about defecting from voting for one of the two major parties. That's my own, very subjective impression.
3. Along with that point, the reason for defecting seems profound: there seems to be a substantial shift (again my own subjective impression) in perception regarding the two major parties and the entire “system”—that is, that the system is broken and that neither party is responsive to the voters. (Occupy Wall Street is more of an effect of that than a cause.) My guess is that the unbroken continuities of the policies of President Obama, following a campaign promising “change,” from those of George W, Bush have a lot to do with this shift. What could have illustrated a broken political system better?

   It's one thing to prefer a third party candidate; it's another to realize that neither of the two major parties are responsive to your interests (or those of any voter like you [i.e., “the 99%]); and yet another to find out that a lot of other people have come to a similar realization or think that they do (almost half of the public thinks the sentiment of the Occupy movement generally reflects the views of most Americans—that percentage strikes me as one signifying some sort of “critical mass”) and that there's a chance, therefore, that a substantial number of voters might defect like you—that sort of dynamic has the potential of being a self-fulfilling, “snowball” one and a very different dynamic than what's been present in recent US history, I think. (That doesn't mean that any third party candidate is likely to win but just that the electoral landscape might be more “unsettled.”)

He did not "say one thing and do another". He said one thing and then said another.

And if you were paying attention, you already knew he could not mean both of them.

I distrusted him early on because I read his words and saw a weasel.

That, and the fact that the media fell so instantly in love with him. That was a bad, bad sign.

Isn't it?

Here we are, nearly in January 2012. We've seen Obama and the Ds in Congress betray the most sacred principles of the Republic, and vote again and again in favor of the interests of the wealthy and powerful, and the very large Wall Street Interests. Not only is there no positive reason to vote for them, but there's also every reason to punish them for their behavior. So, the question is how do we do it?

From my point of view, this is not so much about third parties. What it's about is replacing current office holders with people who we believe will represent us. If the people involved are third party candidates that's fine as long as they have a chance to win. But here's the difficult part. It's easy to advocate voting for a third party candidate if one can win, and it's easy to say we ought to vote for one because if we all do they can get 50 million votes and win. But that glosses over the realities of political campaigns ending in elections. They are processes, and at each moment in such a process the likelihoods affecting our calculations about outcomes are very different.

At this time, the people dissatisfied with the major parties' behavior should already have movements built, their own mobilization organizations standing outside of the veal pen, and a populist third party that has come far enough to be on the ballot in 50 states. Then the likelihood that third party candidates can be elected would be much higher than it is now.

As it stands, however, progressives are not ready to punish Obama and the Ds in 2012 with a credible third party effort. The handwriting on the Wall about this president was certainly clear enough by June of 2009 to have warranted a full on effort to create alternative political machinery to the Democratic Party fueled by organizations and movements independent of it. But that framework for a serious effort was never built. So what do we have now?

We have OWS, single-payer advocacy organizations, some small third party efforts and not much else to fight with. So, how likely is it that a third party effort can move the balance of power in Congress to elect people who will defeat Pelosi and Reid and select new leaders who won't just rubber stamp Obama and do what the corporates want? Is it more likely that we can make this happen than it is that we can get Green New Deal candidates winning in democratic primaries, and then in the general election who will do the same thing? At this point we have to make this judgment before deciding on whether we go all out for a third party at this point, or go all out for Ds who will insist on a Green New Deal come what may.

In another month, the contextual situation will be still different than it is now. Then there will be even less time to get third parties on ballot lines in 50 States. As the months go by the likelihood of third parties affecting the Congress will get smaller and smaller, so as the months go by, and at the Congressional levels it will make even less sense to try to change things through third parties than it will to try to have an impact through Democratic party primaries. Depending on the State, by Spring most Congressional primaries will be over, and unless we've gotten Green New Dealers elected, we'll be facing lesser evilism in elections for the House and the Senate.

What about state and local elections, can we get candidates who will represent us at those levels? Clearly, that's now very important, since if we can take over Governorships and get Mayoral offices in larger cities we'll be in a position to get OWS and other protesters protected from the Cops and the military. This is very important. Local and State Officials have to be taught that if they will not protect our first amendment rights, then they're out. If we can't do that then we'll be out forever.

Now, what about the presidential level? There what we do has to depend in part on who the R candidate turns out to be. Most of the R candidates are crazy tools of the Koch brothers and other Wall Street interests. Gingrich is the stuff of which dangerous dictatorships are made. Romney is a liar, but would probably just muddle along as Obama has, heating up the frog that is our political system slowly, while he continued repress the very idea of justice, and maybe never using the framework that's been put in place to turn it into a full-on Fascist dictatorship.

Huntsman and Buddy Roemer seem out of the R race. But both are getting pushed by Americans Elect, an extremely dishonest organization with a web-based platform for nominating people that is well on the way toward getting ballot lines in 50 States. One thing AE is dishonest about is its branding as a non-partisan organization trying to provide a platform for voters to nominate their choice for President of the United States, who would then run on the AE ticket. I've talked about AE at length now in a few posts and pointed out all the different ways in which it is dishonest.

But clearly based on my analyses, it is an organization dedicated to nominating a candidate who can be trusted to support a globalist trade policy, to support Wall Street interests and the 1% more generally, and also to support a fiscal policy of Government austerity and long-term deficit reduction.

Neither Roemer, nor Huntsman fits this bill perfectly. Huntsman hasn't been tight about spending at the State level, and might not be sufficiently vigorous in bringing entitlement spending under control for the AE people. That is, he might be much like Obama in this respect.

As for Roemer, he may not be as supportive of globalism and Wall Street as I think Hunstman would be. He might be more serious about enforcing the law and not bowing to the big banks. But I also think he would be more serious about austerity than Huntsman, and so would be more of a disaster for the economy and will place more pressure on the middle class.

I can't tell whether Huntsman or Roemer is likely to consolidate the legal framework for totalitarianism created By Bush, Obama, and the major Parties. That's just an open question. But neither one appears to be mean or fanatic.

So, AE, which is not supposed to be "pushing" anyone for President is "pushing" these two right now. They may"push" Bloomberg later, or Romney if he loses the R nomination. But the good news is that neither Huntsman nor Roemer seems to be as mean or narrow or dishonest as the other candidates running, and may provide an opportunity to beat Obama without opening the Presidency to a madcap Republican, or a sinister one.

In any event, there's a chance that AE will nominate either one for President and that the ticket emerging will be on all 50 State Ballots, so a vote for that ticket might allow us to practice "lesser evilism" in a good way, by punishing Obama with a defeat, without thereby electing whichever one of the totally unacceptable Republican candidates gets their "prize." If we can do that while also electing green New Dealers, then I think there would be people in Congress willing to offer vigorous criticism of Roemer or Huntsman on behalf of the 99%, and perhaps even willing to tightly align with a growing OWS movement. And that would give us something to build on and the time, perhaps to be ready for 2016 with a new Party, or a re-claimed D Party that we could count on and that would have a chance to win.

What about third party efforts like the Greens or those of the Justice Party? I think if we really want to have a meaningful choice of candidates from one of those parties, Jill Stein or Rocky Anderson or both n a fusion ticket, then we have to get them on the ballot in most or all 50 States during the next 3-6 months. If we can't do that then, at the presidential level, we'll be faced with a choice of the R-candidate, President O, or perhaps one of the AE selections, which could get really bad if they go for Bloomberg, for example, and then we get to the tradeoffs above, with the best we can get from the election being a President no worse than O, a freeing up of those who want to help the 99%, and a chance for four more of years of time in which we can get fine people like Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson, Bill Black, Margaret Flowers, Kevin Zeese, and Warren Mosler, who care about us, a fighting chance to win the White House and other high offcies

In looking at these possibilities we need to keep monitoring and analyzing month-to-month changes in the situation, it makes no sense now to decide that we will never vote this way or that. We have to make that decision when we come down to voting and between now and then we have to do all we can to make sure that we will have a meaningful choice by seeing to it that Greens and Justice Party candidates get on ballot lines in all 50 States.

It may also be a good idea to test out the AE process to see if we can push them into a corner where their board has to invalidate the candidacies of people they think don't reflect their partisan fiscal austerity agenda. Their claims that they're going to allow their delegates to nominate the American Elect candidate are not to be believed as long as they retain the right in their bylaws for the AE board to throw out of contention people they believe are inappropriate.

Unfortunately, from my reading of the ballot access laws in the 50 states, I think it is too late for the Justice Party to get on very many ballots. The smart thing for Anderson to do would be to get on the Green Party ticket, as a vice-presidential candidate. I think that might happen. If it does, that is a good thing. But it is also inadequate. Your points about nominating progressive Democrats and moderate Republicans at the local level is a good one, but I have no idea how that is done. For a progressive living in a very conservative area of the country, that is almost impossible. Can you imagine me going into a meeting of the local chapter of the Democratic Party and start talking about progressive ideas? I'd be lucky to escape alive! Problems, problems, problems. But the first step in solving a problem is to identify it.