more thoughts on the hopeless third party

Just so you know, godparents, I'm still wrestling with this political stuff. Why must you make me think so hard? ;-)

The Envoy Magazine voter guide is way too long IMHO, and full of advertisements; I didn't even read the whole thing. Seems to focus on abortion versus war and the relative importance of issues. But I thought I would pull out this interesting comment:

The virtue of prudence suggests that we sets our sights on projects ... that have "reasonable hope of success" (to borrow from the Just-War criteria).

What this seems to say is that voting for the third party candidate without a chance is a wasted vote, and possibly even a vote for Obama. I've heard a couple guests on Catholic Answers Live use that exact phrase - wasted vote.

I'm convinced that the war is not a proportionate reason to vote for a pro-abortion candidate. But I'm still trying to find something that persuasively counters Mark Shea's argument that McCain is not actually pro-life because he supports ESCR (lately being referred to as FSCR - F for fetal, which I like because "embryo" is less personal and human than "fetus" don't you think? After all, "fetus" is just Latin for "baby"). Anyway, I have the idea in my head but have a hard time expressing it in writing.

I guess it boils down to limiting the evil, as there are only two potential outcomes here. I've got to go against the greater evil.

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Update: One of the commenters on Mark Shea's blog has it right on, I think.
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/chezami/3238462308132691732/#945495

Bishop Vasa wrote, in part:
"As far as third party candidates are concerned it would seem to me that voting for a candidate who has NO possibility of winning is a symbolic vote which has some merit but it is the same as casting a vote for the person whom you deem LEAST suitable for the position since it takes a vote away from that candidate who has values closer to ours but is not entirely right on all issues."