#WriteInLarrySharpe

If you live in the Hudson Valley, your mailbox is getting blitzed right now with political mailers. Not that I mind them, but messaging on some of these mailers is so infantile as to be unworthy of an election for high school class president, much less U.S. Congress!

 One mailer gives the impression that a certain candidate will release violent felons from prison, and that prisoners are supporting him. No explanation how incarcerated felons are supposed to support him, but that’s the cartoonish message being pitched. I’d tell you what the candidate says about himself, except that his own mailers just demonize his opponent in similarly outrageous terms.

 With only two parties, it's always a race to the bottom. Each side denigrates the opposition, leaving voters to choose the lesser of two evils. Add a third party, however, and smearing an opponent just winds up making the third candidate look better. A three-way race incentivizes candidates to distinguish themselves with policy solutions, which overall leaves voters feeling empowered to vote FOR an option, rather than intimidated into voting AGAINST the only other option.

New Yorkers always have the option to write-in candidates on the ballot, and as citizens it’s our last check on political machines which want to run government. That’s why my family and I will be writing in Larry Sharpe, Libertarian for Governor. We realize it’s unreasonable to expect him to win, but in a state nearly 3-to-1 Democrat, voting blue is superfluous, and voting red only makes a shinier consolation prize for second place. If enough people write-in Larry Sharpe, we have a chance to restore a real third option on ballot, and thereby, to improve the maturity and significance of political discourse from statewide down to local races.

Daniel Donnelly, Amenia
Dutchess County Libertarian Party

[published in the Northern Dutchess News, Vol. 14, Iss. 44, Nov. 2-8, 2022]