Super Tuesday has arrived, and we?ll soon have a much
better idea of whom to expect on our ballots in November. However, the outcome
will be negative for many dedicated followers of the race, regardless who will
get the nominations. As a result, many citizens ? especially John Edwards
supporters ? may be contemplating avoiding the nominees of either major party.

Whether you love or hate Mr. Edwards, you can?t ignore that his campaign
succumbed to nothing more than a simple lack of consideration by mainstream
media. I find it hard to believe that there are actually people deluded enough
to think that most of the people who have chosen Sen. Barack Obama or Sen.
Hillary Clinton over Mr. Edwards actually did so for real, articulate reasons
rather than because of blatant media bias.

I do not intend to imply the media did not give any significant airtime to Mr.
Edwards. To be fair, his face was seen and his voice heard on all of the major
networks on a pretty regular basis. The injustice was that the media never took
him seriously and constantly created headlines that portrayed the race as an
Obama-Clinton clash, allowing Mr. Edwards only to be seen as an unimportant
third wheel, undeserving of any legitimate consideration.

This is an unfortunate situation, to say the least. With Ralph Nader having
recently announced an exploratory committee to examine the possibility of a
fourth shot at the White House, it is important for Edwards supporters to
quickly express support for either Mr. Obama or Ms. Clinton.

Indeed, many supporters of Mr. Edwards and other media-dismissed candidates
have expressed disgust regarding the direction in which the race is heading and
plan to vote for a third-party candidate or not at all in November.

While these reactions are understandable, such supporters should remember to
think with their heads rather than their hearts and consider voting for
whichever Democratic candidate wins the nomination, rather than defiantly
ignoring reality in favor of casting their votes into the abyss of hopeless
?vote-stealing? candidates.

In reaction to the vote-stealing criticisms, Mr. Nader has defended his
decision to make a fourth run by saying he has a constitutional right to run
and that those who accuse him of vote-stealing from Democrats are essentially
labeling third-party candidates ?second-class candidates.?

In making such a statement he fails to recognize that though the system we
currently use typically does favor a two party election, voting for a third
party candidate in November is not going to ?send a message? or cause any
change. At best, it?ll have no effect, and at worst, it could cause a dramatic
change in the outcome of the election ? one Mr. Nader supposedly has no
intention of causing.

Voting Independent in 2008 will be quite literally equivalent to ? here comes
the dreaded phrase ? wasting your vote, when your vote could have instead
contributed toward an actual cause, albeit a bit of a compromise compared to
what you might have preferred. Until a widespread IRV system (involving ranking
the candidates in order of preference, rather than simply voting for one
candidate) is put into place, voting for an obscure third party candidate isn?t
going to do anything but sway the election in an unintended direction.

Thankfully, the media will come back into play in favor of avoiding a
Nader-spoiler. A fourth consecutive, futile attempt to gain a significant
following will largely be ignored by mainstream media, and hopefully to the
extent that Mr. Nader’s run will have no impact on the outcome of the election.

Brenton Martell ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in English.