When you step into the voting booth, you’re not voting for a candidate, at least not primarily for her. You are voting to protect twenty million newly-insured people under health reform. You’re voting for the single mom in Texas who has an unintended pregnancy, the child in Little Village whose parents need humane immigration policies, the disabled man who needs decent medical and social services, the little girl in Bangladesh whose village may someday be submerged if we don’t address to climate change. We’re not voting “for” [the candidates], or at least primarily for them. This election is not about expressing our personal identities and tribal affinities as voters, either. It’s about millions of people who have real things to lose if we elect the wrong person.

Harold Pollack, “When You Vote, It’s Not About You or Your Preferred Candidate”