I heard from a reader who was disappointed in last week’s column on Indiana’s U.S. Senate race.
“You drone on and on about the lesser of two evils, while totally ignoring the winner of the recent debate, Lucy Brenton,” he wrote.
Brenton is the Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate, and she did have one of the more memorable lines in the debate.
“These two gentlemen are part of the problem,” she said. “We can either drain the swamp or send in another alligator.”
After a testy exchange between incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly and Republican challenger Mike Braun, Brenton offered some comic relief.
“It’s going to be an awfully long evening if we simply listen to them repeat their commercials back and forth to each other,” she said.
It’s true that those commercials haven’t done much to enlighten voters, but this is hardly a choice between the lesser of two evils. Donnelly and Braun have staked out clear differences in their positions.
Donnelly brags about his vote to save Obamacare. Braun wants to repeal it.
Braun describes himself as 100 percent pro-life. Donnelly makes room for exceptions.
Last week’s column noted that the two had accused one another of being rubber stamps, Braun for Donald Trump and Donnelly for the Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate. My reader suggested that it was really me who was the rubber stamp.
“Besides your obvious support for the current status-quo, you do a disservice to all of us who support change in this corrupt cesspool we call Washington,” he said.
He cited the recent Supreme Court battle among the reasons he would never again vote for a sitting politician such as Donnelly.
“I have, for many years now, voted the straight Libertarian ticket as the first move in any general election,” he wrote. “And I will continue to do so in the future. There are more of us each year, and at some point, people like you are going to have to start acknowledging us. Libertarians now have automatic ballot access in 43 states for presidential elections, and that number grows each cycle.”
He argues that the reason Libertarians haven’t gained more traction is that guys like me keep ignoring them.
“This type of ‘reporting’ is exactly the reason the two parties have a stranglehold on our nation, much to the detriment of all,” he wrote.
I understand the reader’s frustration. He’s unhappy with both major political parties, and he’s looking for an alternative.
The fact is, though, that Lucy Brenton will not be our next U.S. senator, and a vote for her is little more than a protest vote.
I won't deny the Libertarian Party has been gaining in popularity. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the party’s U.S. Senate candidates were drawing less than 2 percent of the vote. Now, they’re topping 5 percent.
Still, those candidates are a long way from getting elected, and it simply isn’t true that a vote for either of the two major party candidates is a vote for the status quo.
The status quo has Republicans in charge of the White House and both houses of Congress. If you like the way things are going, you should vote for Mike Braun.
If you’re not all that happy with the way things are going and you’d like to see a check on the president, you’d be better off voting for Joe Donnelly.
If you’re mad at both political parties and you just want to send a message, then, by all means, cast your vote for Lucy Brenton. Just don’t expect your candidate to win.