I wasn’t going to vote today. I was lukewarm on a few different options that I was considering:

1) Write in a candidate I believe in – the clearest statement my vote could make.

2) Vote for Joe Kennedy – support a third party anti-war, anti-corporate-duopoly candidate

3) Vote for Martha Coakley – keep the Senate seat out of the hands of a regressive/oppressive Republican.

But leading up to today I felt stronger and stronger about throwing in with the largest bloc of Massachusetts residents — those who won’t be voting at all.

Then along came the pleas from friends. Now, I’m not moved by the inside-the-box thinking that accompanies these pleas. But today I’m making a swap. While my heart wants to stand in solidarity with the people of the world that the corporate duopoly is ravaging, and raise my voice against this brutal and unjust system instead of tacitly supporting it, I’ve made another decision — a somewhat crass political decision. I asked one of my Coakley-appealing-friends to cast their vote in November for the Green-Rainbow Party candidate for governor, no matter what impact that vote might have on a precious Democratic victory. The result is that today I will begrudgingly vote for the Democratic Party candidate for US Senator.