But one or the other will be elected. Period.
No, my point has always been that we should not 'elect' either one (D or R).
No, it really isn't.
Your vote is your endorsement.
In the first place, that is yet to be determined. That being said, If your statement becomes true, then I can guarantee you that neither will be elected with my vote.
Democracy is all about compromise. You make the best choice of the available options. As the options narrow, you adjust you choice to the best one remaining.
Thank God we live in a Republic and not a Democracy, and for that precise reason. In a Republic, one must vote one's conscience. And you need not believe only me. Read Washington, Adams, and Jefferson on the matter of the vote, and on the matter of parties and partisans.
Partisanship is anathema to a Republic, and the parties exist as a necessary evil, to provide the mechanics, the engine, if you would, for the ideologies they embody. That is the sole reason for their construction in the American system. It is the ideology that is of importance, not the party.
[Your vote is your endorsement.]
No, it really isn't. In a two party system such as ours, you vote against the lesser of two evils. You really do. That's not just rhetoric.
No, you really *don't*. One is supposed to vote one's conscience, as was our instruction from our fathers. Would you have their words removed?
That is how our system is set up. That is how you are meant to vote in order to make it work. [...] That is American politics, so one could say, voting 3rd party is unAmerican...
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost. -John Quincy Adams "Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally. The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty. The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection." -George Washington "There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution." -John Adams