I'm voting for a platform if I vote for a Democrat or Republican or Libertarian That's true to a certain extent. But it's only one side of the equation. Even i

I'm voting for a platform if I vote for a Democrat or Republican or Libertarian That's true to a certain extent. But it's only one side of the equation. Even if you can take party as a proxy for the candidate, it tells you nothing about the issues. So, let's say that your biggest concern at the moment is the economy. Without knowing something about economics, how do you decide which party to support? If you can't tell the difference between Keynes and Hayek, everything else is just demagoguery. You're just judging the propaganda. What if you're concern is healthcare? I know plenty of people who say "vote out the damn Democrats, and put in somebody who's smart enough to enact tort reform to fix the problem". These ill-informed views might make them feel superior, but giving people power to create policy based on them isn't going to help anything.