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Originally Posted by Aladdin Sane
As a conservative, I am having a time reconciling myself to John McCain. I don't like him. I find him to be opportunistic, egotistical, and untrustworthy. Still, when push comes to shove, in the general election, I will cast my vote for him because he is obviously better than anyone the Dems will put forward.
In the meantime, I plan to cast a tactical vote in the primary for either Hillary or Obama.
Should I pull the lever for Hillary, hoping that she will be easiest to beat in November? Or shall I vote for the empty-suit Obama, knowing that if he gets elected he'll not be able to get any of his destructive ideas passed into law?
I am leaning toward Hillary, because her negatives are through the roof-- the perfect Democrat candidate, methinks.
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I will first confess that I am an Obama supporter.
That said, I would point you towards the recent polls (though I don't remember where), that showed that Obama vs. McCain led to an Obama win by 10%, and Hillary vs. McCain led to a Hillary win by 4%. Then I will point you to an old election in Georgia, where Republican voters tactically voted for the worst Democratic candidate, who then won the general election in an upset.
So this is what I would suggest:
Don't vote for the worst candidate, because if they end up winning the thing, you'll regret it. Pick whomever you can stomach more.
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Originally Posted by samcol
This is the philosophy that I follow. If you're not voting for the best possible choice in your mind you're hurting the system IMO. Voting lesser of two evils or voting for the liberal candidate that can be beat isn't helping anyone. If you vote Hitlery how does that help a conservative get elected? All that does is put Mccain vs. Hillary. Mccain is not a conservative, but will continue to ruin the name of the GOP while acting as a conservative but implementing very left wing/moderate policies.
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This might surprise you, but many times voting for the guy with a chance is a sound voting policy. Arrow's Impossibility Theorem (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%2...bility_theorem) shows that no voting system is completely representative of the community, for example if there are 100 voters and 3 candidates, A, B, and C, and the people feel this way:
30 people like A the best, then C, then B
25 people like C the best, then A, then B
25 people like B the best, then A, then C
20 people like B the best, then C, then A
Then B would win, even though 55 percent of people liked B the least, fewer than the 25% or 20% who liked A the least.
On the other hand, look at the people who liked C, and realize that even with their combined 25% and the 20% who like B better, they couldn't get half of the vote. But those 25% of people like A better than B. Now, either they can "vote their conscience" and end up with B, or vote for A, handing the victory to A.
Now maybe this goes against your principles but deal with it. Your vote for Ron Paul really IS a waste of a vote, just like the 5% who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 and handed the victory to George Bush. What did they accomplish? Were they trying to make a statement? Because that statement was something along the lines of "I made a terrible mistake."