right now am leaning to voting as I never have before -- straight ticket; Libertarian
went through a lot of soul-searching, wrestling with the question of whether I would be "throwing my vote away", and decided it would not be
You may be surprised to know that I support voting for third-party candidates at the top of the ballot. Texas is decidedly
not a swing state, so your presidential vote probably wouldn't influence the outcome at all, even if you voted or Obama or McCain, so it doesn't make any sense to suggest that voting for any other candidate would be "throwing [your] vote away". I believe that a strong showing by a third party candidate won't change the outcome of the election (of course), but
can have an effect on the course of the national dialogue: The Libertarian candidate won 0.5% of the vote in Texas in 2004. Should Barr win as many as 2% this year in Texas (a sizeable jump), political analysts and consultants in close downstream races will definitely take note of that fact.
That argument, though, doesn't apply to other races. The other races on the ballot are decided by the direct popular vote, and your vote can contribute towards their actual outcome. Texas has an important Senate race, for example, between a Republican incumbent (John Cornyn) and his Democratic challenger (Texas House Representative Rick Noriega). If you
really believe there's no difference between the two candidates, you should still want to vote for the Republican, since his seniority as an incumbent will give him more important committee positions and give your state a greater voice in shaping policy. On the other hand, if you don't
like the voice Cornyn is bringing to Texas, is a vote for Yvonne Shick, the Libertarian, likely to make a difference?
It's your vote, but if you're leaning towards 'straight ticket Libertarian', I'd urge you to think a little more this weekend about the influence your vote might have in non-Presidential races.