Why don't we just vote the bums out of office? I voted for Obama both times. Going forward, I sure won't vote for anyone who supports this. We should organize and figure out who is for and against this.
Indeed, democrats gravitated to Obama, especially the second time around, because he projected a strong stance on national security. He was the guy who killed Osama and that sold really well. Republicans love strong national security, and democrats either do too (Reagan democrats), or are sick of their candidates being considered weak and soft on communisim/terrorism/etc. Democrats wouldn't vote a President Kucinich because he is perceived as weak and at this point neither party wants to put up a candidate like that. Geez, just look at Carter. That was a guy whose politics mesh really well with the prevailing mood on HN, but look at how the democratic party has swept him under the rug. In the U.S., being perceived as weak is fatal in a leader.
And even at the local level, techies, insistant on ideological purity, won't make the compromises necessary to make this happen. Are you going to vote for a Congressman who wants the 10 commandments hung up in schools, wants to see abortion made illegal, and whose objection to survrillance comes from the same survivalist mistrust of government that makes him a top-rated candidate by the NRA? If techies as a whole are willing to do that, maybe they can get some congresspeople elected. As it is, they support a democratic party that doesn't really care strongly about civil liberties. Its Tipper Gore's party, the one that tried to undermine the 1st amendment by banning violent music lyrics from stores and recently tried to ban violent video games with a law that was struck down by the Supreme Court. You think all the "think of the children!" suburbanite Californians share the distrust of surveillance that people on HN do?
* The ability for the constituency to override important votes if thresholds are met
* The capacity to initiate a vote of no confidence in an elected official at any time, and for such an action to take effect immediately should it pass, establishing new candidates and elections for the position
* Public financing of all campaigns, with free and open access to all media channels required by law, as a duty such companies must shoulder in exchange for the privilege of operating their businesses within the United States
* Declaring that money is property, not speech. Lobbying must be performed by no more than one degree of separation from the original sponsor, and utilizing chains of shell companies and organizations to mask the source of lobbying becomes a criminal offense with a mandatory prison sentence for every link in the chain
* EDIT (forgot this one): Requiring all public data --laws, emails, chat logs, sanitation test results, etc, etc-- be digitally available over the internet and accessible to everyone with a free and open API as well as simple web portal
* Legal teeth built into election law that establishes the following for all elections at all levels:
+++ A none-of-the-above candidate. Should it take majority, all candidates that lost to it are barred from the next election, which takes place N weeks later with new candidates
+++ Implement an Instant Runoff voting scheme
+++ Implement a Mixed-Member Proportional Representation districting scheme.
But... that's just me. I think the mechanics of how we do "democratic-republic constitutional federalism" is more important than any particular issue.
I kid. Unfortunately, many of these are good but would be impossible to pass in today's political climate.
One that I agree with strongly and would make a huge difference is an instant run-off ballot.
Not that this is easy, but it's another option.
In other words, you are waiting for this guy:
"I am major party candidate so-and-so, and I swear to you that I will not allow the government to spy on you!"
Why would you have voted for Obama the second time after seeing what sort of president he was in his first four years? Did those four years not give you a clue that maybe Obama was a wolf in sheep's clothing?
Simply choosing between major party candidates in the general election isn't going to get the job done - we need to find ways to apply pressure earlier in a meaningful way and get both parties shifted away from the authoritarianism that dominates.
But...they don't. At least, not collectively. Under the status quo system, each major party has preferences, numbered in order (letters distinguish approximately-equal-preference alternatives within the numbered category):
1. We get your vote,
2a. Your vote goes to someone other than the other major party
2b. You don't vote,
3. The other major party gets your vote.
In fact, each major party has a pretty strong incentive to want people that aren't sold on their platform to blame the two-party system and opt out entirely either by not voting or voting third party, since you voting for the other major party is going to be twice as bad for the major party you aren't voting for than not voting or voting third party.
On issues like this one, where party positions seem to depend only on whether it's their guy doing it, I'm not sure what the appropriate strategy is.
It requires looking beyond voting. The only reason issues like you describe exist is because there isn't a sufficiently strong committed electoral constituency around the issue that will vote, run primary challengers, and provide money and boots on the ground for campaign operations around the issue, so that it just becomes a tactical issue of convenience to the major parties.
Voting behavior, alone, isn't going to do anything to change that. Voting is important in a democracy, but it isn't the only -- or even the most important -- form of political participation.
It still leaves the direct question - while less important - unanswered: when we do go to vote, what is the optimal approach on this kind of issue?
Voting is a blunt instrument that's very rarely useful -- especially in one election -- at affecting change on any specific issue of this type (that is, one on which the major parties have no real distinction, though they exploit any opportunity to take PR pot-shots at the other party.)
If you haven't changed the landscape by political action before the election so that the issue you are concerned about is no longer that kind of issue, then there isn't an effective voting strategy available.