Alternate Parties

* As a Libertarian, I am sick of being told that I will be wasting my vote this year because I am choosing to vote for Harry Browne. Funny, I was always taught that the only wasted vote is the one uncast. We are being bombarded by the big party machines trying to steer our votes toward Al Gore or George W. Bush and away from Browne, Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan and the other lesser-known candidates, saying that they will ruin the election. If we don’t have leaders who inspire us and move us, people don’t vote. That is whatruins the elections.

This country needs alternatives to the Republicans and Democrats. My vote will go to build that alternative. It may not happen this year or next year, but it will happen. Politics should evolve just as our country has evolved.

HARRIET GOREN

Laguna Niguel

*

In justifying his probable vote for Nader, Clancy Sigal is “into a long-term struggle” for a “progressive coalition that outflanks the Democratic Party” (Commentary, Oct. 29).

It so happens that the religious right and corporate America are masters of the long-term struggle, and if Bush is elected president, they will be rewarded for their patience and solidarity with the appointments of anti-choice, anti-worker and anti-environment justices to the Supreme Court, to say nothing of many other appointments inimical to everything Sigal says he values. Sigal wants to hurt “conservative Democratic politicians” for taking him for a sucker, but the middle class, the poor and the environment will be the true victims of his petulant, me-oriented politics.

Sigal is a perfect example of the observation that when leftists are asked to form a firing squad, they get into a circle. How sad.

BILL BECKER

Woodland Hills

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“Young Voters’ Issues Are Ignored” (Voices, Oct. 28) has me completely puzzled. The most prominent issues in this campaign have been education, health care, the economy, taxes and the Social Security and Medicare programs. Also discussed were the environment, crime and minority issues. If a college senior does not understand that all these issues directly affect her, now and in the future, then our educational system is truly a failure.

DAVID S. ROBINSON

Laguna Woods

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Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! Losing ground in many polls, Democrats are desperate for campaign help from Bill Clinton. Yet Gore must attempt to convince voters he is his own man, so he publicly says he doesn’t want help. This is empty posturing, because he still needs Clinton. The fact that he’s having trouble getting the liberal base excited shows his true lack of leadership ability. Clinton will be out of office in January. If elected next week, what will poor Gore do then?

MICHAEL COONEY

Glendale

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Why have I not heard of the failure of the Republican Congress? Why has there been no legislation regarding Medicare, Social Security, prescription prices, education? And yet Bush would have me believe a Republican in the White House will accomplish changes. I don’t think so!

ROBERT S. ELLISON

Arcadia