Read This If You Believe Your Candidate Lost Due to Third-Party Voters

So it turns out Terry McAuliffe
and Ken Cuccinelli were able to draw away enough votes to keep
Robert Sarvis from winning Virginia’s governor’s race. I hope the
folks who put those guys on the ballot are happy.

Last night, my Twitter feed had quite a few conservatives laying
the blame on Sarvis for costing Cuccinelli the election (which
really isn’t true according to polls, and it probably wouldn’t
even had been a close outcome but for the Obamacare mess). So in
the spirit of reconciliation, here are some tips from a typical
third-party voter to major party movers and shakers who are trying
to figure out how to approach us. Note: I live in California and
therefore did not vote in Virginia’s gubernatorial race. If I had,
I probably would have voted for Sarvis.

We don’t like your candidate. Really, this
should go without saying. We are not voting for your candidate
because we don’t like your candidate and what he or she stands for.
At least, he or she stands for enough things we don’t like to want
to see your candidate lose. Even if Sarvis voters did cause
Cuccinelli to lose, it’s extremely important to understand that
this is what these voters wanted. That the outcome was McAuliffe’s
victory is also unfortunate, but don’t assume that Sarvis voters
actually saw Cuccinelli as the lesser of two evils.

You need to make an actual case for your
candidate. Once you wade out of the red team versus blue
team fight, you have to set aside the mentality that comes with it.
Too many folks were still making the argument that Cuccinelli was
better than McAuliffe when they needed to be making the argument
that Cuccinelli was better than Sarvis. Timothy Carney at the
Washington Examiner
took on this task later in late October and made some good
points about Cuccinelli. It probably wouldn’t have been enough to
get my vote, but it was at least enough to make me think it
over.

Don’t presume to tell us what we believe. Oh,
look, conservative
National Review says Sarvis isn’t a real libertarian and
libertarians shouldn’t vote for him. Libertarians are used to
having their positions misunderstood, misappropriated and
mischaracterized by both the left and the right. Anybody trying to
come explaining libertarianism to libertarians better be able to
make a good case. Sarvis has been hit over his position on taxes,
particularly on paying for roads with a mileage tax. The mistake
here is assuming that libertarians are supposed to believe in a
world without taxes entirely. Not entirely true, depending on where
an individual libertarian falls on the spectrum. As has been noted
before, Adrian Moore of the Reason Foundation has himself spoken

in favor of mileage taxes as a way to pay for roads using the
money of the people who actually use them. From my background in
covering and watching municipal politics I’m a skeptic. I don’t
think it’s a bad idea – I just don’t trust that it will be
implemented as a replacement tax and will just add to citizens’
burdens, and I don’t trust that the money would actually go to
roads. This doesn’t make either Moore or myself non-libertarians.
We are assessing the likely outcomes of the policy in different
ways.

No really, don’t pull this blue versus red crap
on us. The Blaze noted that an
Obama bundler helped pay for the petitioning process to get
Sarvis on the ballot. So … guilt by association? I guess Sarvis
should have just not run for governor if he needed assistance from
somebody experienced in political processes because it’s from the
left? According to The Blaze’s own reporting, the guy gives money
to both libertarians and Democrats. We get the same crap
from the left whenever the Koch brothers money finds its
way into hands of conservatives as well. Strangely, this piece is
the one getting thrown at me the most, but it has the least
compelling argument. It’s pointless left vs. right purity test
crap.

Respect that voters determine their own political
priorities. I criticized Carney’s column because it felt
to me like he was saying that those libertarians who were voting
against Cuccinelli because of his social conservatism should
deprioritize these concerns. He argued that “identity politics” was
helping sink Cuccinelli. As frustrating as “identity politics” can
be, it’s important not to confuse the term with the idea that
voters have different priorities than you have. Voting against a
candidate because you believe he will try to implement policies
that will harm you or people you care about is not identity
politics, even if the policies are connected to your identity. I
have read a number of folks lamenting that voters turned against
Cuccinelli on these “social issues.” The outcome of such a
complaint is giving the voter the impression that you don’t care
about or don’t respect their personal priorities when choosing a
candidate. If that’s the case, how can you ever expect them to vote
for yours?