How about principled but wrong? You can cast a meaningful third party vote for the future. However, to my mind, unless your candidate is a member of a party that has some realistic chance of gaining momentum and winning something somewhere in the foreseeable future, then voting for a third party candidate is a wasted vote. Measured by that test, voting for Perot the first time arguably was not a waste since there seemed the possibility that something with legs was being built. I don't think the same thing could be said about his second candidacy.

But Green votes? Libertarian? Peace and Freedom? All a waste.

Let's say you are at a small bus station:

The station serves 3 bus lines: The Red Bus, The Blue Bus, and the Yellow Bus.

You wish to go to Town A.

The Red Bus used to go to Town A but now only stops near it...requiring a considerable walk to get to the town center.

The Blue Bus doesn't go to Town A at all but instead takes you straight to Town B.

The Yellow Bus goes to town A, but has 3 flat tires and the hood is currently up..

"Ideally", the Yellow Bus would work or the Red Bus would still go to Town A....but since the ideal is not possible, how are you going to get to Town A?

Red Bus/walk?

or

Sit on the Yellow bus and hope it starts some day;)

The blue bus is a much bigger bus, and it goes to Town B to pick up people who also want to go to Town A.

When the people in Town B would call the red bus company, they would say, "No, we can't pick you up. But be patient, and we will bring Town A to you."

Other than that, good analogy.

Except a lot of people don't buy into the basic assumptions of the analogy.

For quite a few people they agree that the Red Bus goes to Town B and not anywhere near Town A. However, they don't agree that the Blue Bus goes near enough to Town A that you can walk, they just think that the Blue Bus goes to Town B, calls it Town A, and thinks you should be happy that they at least pretend to be helping you get where you want to be.

If a vote for a person or party that has zero chance of winning is a wasted vote then there are significant parts of this country where the only rational behavior is to vote Republican (or vice versa) for local office since there is zero chance of the other party winning locally. Voting for a Republican mayor in San Francisco (where Gavin Newsom is widely labeled as too conservative) is just as wasted as voting for Nader for president in 2008.

Vote for you want.

Plus, third parties don't need to have a chance to win in order to impact policy. They just need to be strong enough for one of the major parties to feel like they being weakened. At which point they'll try to absorb the issues of the fringe

Bus Driver of Company 1 says "I'm going to take you to City A." Bus Driver of Company 2 says "I'm going to take you to city A, but I'll do it faster and my bus will take more people." They argue and both take a group.

Each bus wreck. Both Bus Drivers say "stay on the bus! All is fine! There's no problem, and we actually didn't wreck at all."

Each bus has an unaffiliated mechanic and body repair specialist who offer to help, but out of fear of losing control of the bus, each bus driver insists that they have the problems well under control and the passengers can all just go about their business on the wrecked busses.

Meanwhile, their busses block the road to City A for anyone else trying to get there, so no one gets to City A.

Good points.....can I call you Fiorello?

:snap:

Lets all just take the train....

So... voting for someone just because they'll be the winner isn't throwing your vote away?

Until I decided to like Obama, my plan was to vote for the Libertarian candidate, because by voting for a can't-win candidate I make myself a "swing" voter who dem and rep candidates will need to try to bring on board to give them the edge in future elections. And who I give my vote to indicates what kind of direction they're going to have to move politically to grab my vote.