I "owe" my vote to no man, or party

Several of my friends who support Mitt Romney have told me that my support of Gary Johnson for President will just siphon away votes from Gov. Romney and help usher in an Obama victory.  They act as though my vote belongs to Romney already, by virtue of my natural conservatism or being a Republican, and that casting a "protest vote" for Johnson will only help Obama win reelection.  I even had a friend tell me that the Obama campaign should be running ads in support of Gary Johnson to peel off support from Romney.  Here are at least two problems with that argument:

1.) My vote doesn't "belong" to anyone other than who I think is the best candidate and will do the best job in the office they are running for. In the 2012 Presidential race that candidate is Gov. Gary Johnson.  Second place isn't even close.

2.) To my knowledge there is zero (0) empirical evidence that, on the whole, a vote for Johnson is "stealing" a vote from Romney.  If the only options this year were Obama and Romney I couldn't guarantee you that I would actually vote.  In that scenerio, if I did vote, I would probably take a page from Monty Brewster and choose "None of the Above."  That's how strongly I feel about both major party candidates this year.  They're terrible.

However, there have been several polls that show that votes for Johnson could be coming at the expense of President Obama.  Here is an article from the British paper The Guardian that shows that, at least in Colorado, libertarian support for Gary Johnson is coming at the expense of President Obama.  So Mr. President, as my friend suggested, please start running ads encouraging liberty minded individuals to vote for Gary Johnson.  Pretty please.