Make your voice heard by voting against two-party status quo

Editor,

I want to take a moment to echo a few ideas that were presented by Lila Sanchez in her Sept. 10 letter to the editor. Voting for the lesser of two evils in politics will result in exactly that: evil.

Voters need to realize if we really want to change the course of the nation, we cannot keep voting with this insane mentality that a lesser of two evils will actually be beneficial to our country. I tell people I am going to vote for a third-party candidate this year, and they laugh because I am "throwing my vote away."

People need to realize the two-party system we currently have is never going to be capable of changing the mess we are in because both Republicans and Democrats are responsible for it, even though Americans like to place 100 percent of the blame on President Bush.

John McCain is a grumpy old man who is incapable of speaking to a group of citizens without making mistakes, let alone leading a nation out of turmoil without causing greater damage. Conservatives are surprisingly unsupportive of him due to his liberal voting history, but they insist on voting for him to carry out their conservative ideology. Obama has not proven to be the advocate for change he has touted since he began this campaign. He is engaging in the same mudslinging politics, as always, and he is slowly changing his views on what needs to be done in Washington - views that are strikingly similar to McCain's. I hate to bust all of you Obama maniacs, but he has given absolutely no physical evidence of change, just empty rhetoric.

Thankfully, we have more than two options this voting season. If you really want to bring change to this nation, then don't comply with this ridiculous two-party system. Muster the courage to go against the system and status quo. If everyone who was voting for a lesser of two evils united their strength and supported a third-party candidate, then maybe it would no longer be a waste of a vote. If you really want to make your vote count, then vote for someone you believe in, not who CNN or Fox News tells you to believe in. Vote for Cynthia McKinney, Bob Barr, Ralph Nader, Chuck Baldwin or any other third-party candidate. They are the ones who truly bear the promise of change.

Vincent Haslam

UNM student