Indeed this is so, there are a lot of people saying, basically, that to "vote your conscience is to give Obama the presidency".
IMHO, we can't afford 4 more years of Obama, and there's not a snowball's chance etc. that a third-party candidate can win the POTUS election.
I disagree. We could easily afford another four years of Obama; what we cannot afford is Senators and Representatives that just roll over any time he does something. -- IE we need men of integrity -- I believe that all of Obama's actions would be invalidated if they really were to uphold the Constitution... but even if Obama qualified to be President, virtually none of the things he's enacted would have been possible with the Congress actively acting against him. (That is saying nothing about impeachment.)
The way to make change is from the bottom up: local elections, state elections, federal House and Senate seats.
Agreed. Though I've just moved to a new state; got in yesterday... so I may not vote at all for the local elections; given that it'd be a totally ignorant shot in the dark.
Realistically speaking, there are only two choices for POTUS. It's just the way it is right now.
Indeed, and that is why I cannot vote for Romney. It only sends the message to the Republican party that "it's ok, I'll vote for whoever you pick."
in short, I have no faith in the Repiblican-party as a whole, nor in Romney as an individual, to even attempt to do what they claim to want to do.
Then why don't you get gone from the FR forum and quit wasting our bandwidth!?!