For many people Obama is not a "lesser evil." For the privileged, he can be.

[Ms. Toad]

96. Being the lesser of "two evils" and not having a reason to vote for Obama are not opposites.

Being the lesser of two evils implies that, taken as an up down choice, I would not vote for Obama (making him "evil" as the saying goes). On the whole, he is far too right for me - particularly in the area of foreign policy civil liberties and I could barely stand to listen to the "Osama bin Laden" is still dead gloating, and the celebration of targeted drone attacks because they result in fewer US deaths (and fewer armed service individuals being exposed to the trauma associated with the taking of human life) in the lead up to the election because assassinating people, and using targeted drone attacks, are abhorrent to my sense of justice and how the US ought to be engaging on the world stage.

The same is true of Romney - to an even greater degree.

So, my choice is between two men, neither of whom - taken as a whole - come close to my ideal. That is what the phrase "lesser of two evils" means.

That does not mean I don't have reasons, on isolated issues, to vote for Obama. I am, much to my chagrin, a single issue voter this election. I used to look down my nose at people like that. I am voting for Obama on the single issue of access to health care for my family. There are other, much less critical issues, on which I also support him - but I would be supporting any candidate, regardless of party affiliation, who had a realistic chance of getting elected whose plan for access to health care includes my daughter. That candidate is Obama. There are third party candidates whose position on this issue more closely matches mine - but they do not have a realistic chance of being elected, and voting for any of them would make it more likely that Romney would be elected.

The pushback you are getting, IMHO, is that you have isolated certain groups of (primarily social) issues on which President Obama is most distinct from (and better than) Romney, then decreed that only white, male, privileged people would look beyond those areas and feel - on the whole - that Barack Obama is the lesser of two evils.

As I noted in my title - I see both. In a larger sense (the one I aspire to), Barack Obama is the lesser of two evils - falling fall short on the foreign policy and civil liberties fronts - of a candidate I could (on the whole) vote for. On a much narrower scope (one which includes very personal reasons for me), I am voting for President Obama. The two are not the mutually exclusive positions your subject line implies.