OK, there are lots of reasons to get Obama out of office. The problem is, that for most of them, I have no reasonable hope that Romney will be any better. Corporatism? CEO as Venture-Capitalist-in-Chief? Indefinite detentions? Lack of Transparency? The Drug War? Obamacare, which was modeled on Romneycare? What are the odds that any of these improve under Romney, and at least under Obama they are not being done by someone who wraps himself in the mantle of small government and free markets, helping to corrupt the public understanding of those terms.
So I am pretty sure I cannot vote for Romey. I really like Gary Johnson and I am pretty sure he will get my vote. Republican friends get all over me for wasting my vote, saying it will just help Obama win. So be it -- I see both candidates undertaking roughly the same actions and I would rather that bad statist actions be taken in the name of Progressives rather than in the name of someone who purports to be free market.
To test my own position, I have been scrounging for reasons to vote for Romney. I have two so far:
1. Less likely to bail out Illinois when its pension system goes broke in the next few years
2. I might marginally prefer his Supreme Court nominees to Obama's
That is about all I have. Stretching today, I have come up with a third:
3. If we have a Republican in the White House, the press will start doing its job and dig into the facts about drone strikes and warrant-less wiretapping.
You know the press are in full defense mode protecting their guy in office when the only press that reports on the ACLU's accusation about sky-rocketing wire tapping under Obama are the libertarians at Reason and the Marxists at the World Socialist Web site. Four years ago the New York Times would have milked this for about a dozen articles. It may take a Republican President to get the media to kick back into accountability mode over expansions of executive power.