Why would I advocate voting for a minor party candidate even in states where doing so could allow Romney to win, given that Romney's policies are as bad as Obama's and his rhetoric is substantially worse? A major reason is that Obama's defeat would ungag progressive Democratic politicians, giving space for real opposition to regressive measures and wars for global hegemony, and forcing the MSM to report at least some more of their positions. In my case, I also hope that the Greens might gain meaningful momentum.
As things stand, I feel that Obama's obsession with chilling progressive and international criticism--via blatantly unconstitutional laws and universal surveillance, the cruel and formerly unusual extra-judicial penalties he continues to push and use, as well as the creation in the TPP of an international corporate veto over the duly enacted laws of nations--increases the hate speech and the irrational beliefs rampant in the U.S. by squelching real debate. His policies do what they are designed to do, make progressive organizing and protest much more difficult. When people can't hear the reasoning behind other people's positions, they are easier to propagandize.
Under Obama, it is quite likely that the TPP will force sites like OEN to close or become prohibitively expensive for most of their current participants. This "trade" agreement includes a provision holding the ISPs legally liable for any plagiarism on the sites they host, necessitating enormously expensive monitoring of sites with large amounts of original content (to make sure none of it has been stolen) and/or the accumulation of enough reserve capital to deal with any lawsuits. He has also laid the groundwork for slashing the public programs that the 99% depend upon while maintaining plausible deniability by removing funding decisions from the visible Congressional arena to the hidden deliberations of the "bipartisan Budget Supercommitte". The "Supercommittee" includes no progressives, but has some of the most extreme Congressional rightwingers. The annual package it proposes has to be voted upon without debate or amendment within a 3 week window during the winter holiday season, with automatic implementation of the package if the vote is not held in time.
Will Congressional Democrats be as likely to quietly comply with the ratification of anti-democratic measures like these under a President Romney as they will under a President Obama? The outcome would likely be that a President Romney would not be able to pass any more of the pro-1% agenda than President Obama would, and that a real opposition to it would be much more likely to coalesce.
