• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Do you always vote party line for President or must candidates earn your vote?

Do you always vote party line for President or must candidates earn your vote?

  • Yes. I have voted against my party's candidate.

    Votes: 16 32.0%
  • Yes. I would be open to voting against my party's candidate.

    Votes: 20 40.0%
  • No. I have never voted against my party's candidate.

    Votes: 6 12.0%
  • No. I would not consider voting against my party's candidate.

    Votes: 1 2.0%
  • If I don't like my party's candidate, I'll switch parties first.

    Votes: 1 2.0%
  • I could not see myself voting for the opposition but I could not vote on election day.

    Votes: 5 10.0%
  • Other.

    Votes: 18 36.0%

  • Total voters
    50
I am a member of the Democratic Party and moveon.org. The nominee for the party will receive one blue vote from me in a bright red state. So yeah, my vote won't count as usual.

The nice thing about being a party member is that I don't have to actually choose between the two presumptious losers that will probably make the ballot. I made that choice when I joined the party.
 
I am not nor should anybody be beholden to a particular political party, but instead to a sense of right and wrong. Unfortunately the democratic party is currently the only one major political party that has shown a willingness to do what is right. Therefore I will for the foreseeable future vote only for their candidates.

What exactly has the democratic party done over the last 8 years? Hillary Clinton in particular.
 
I am a member of the Democratic Party and moveon.org. The nominee for the party will receive one blue vote from me in a bright red state. So yeah, my vote won't count as usual.

The nice thing about being a party member is that I don't have to actually choose between the two presumptious losers that will probably make the ballot. I made that choice when I joined the party.

Did you get a check from George Soros when you joined moveon.org. You do know who George Soros is don't you?
 
Did you get a check from George Soros when you joined moveon.org. You do know who George Soros is don't you?

I know who George Soros is. He didn't send me a check. The money exchange runs in the opposite direction.
 
So you send a convicted crook money...priceless.

No, I send it to the organization, to be used for causes that I believe in.

I see you're only here to annoy me.
 
No, I send it to the organization, to be used for causes that I believe in.

Moveon.org is financed by George Soros, a convicted crimial and ex Nazi collaborator. Nice you could help him and his organization out.

I see you're only here to annoy me.

Bingo! See my avatar....
 
Voting the party line all the time strikes me as an reflexive action. People who vote reflexively shouldn't vote.
 
Voting the party line all the time strikes me as an reflexive action. People who vote reflexively shouldn't vote.

I already stated that voting Dem in Texas is a wasted vote.

I don't have to do it every time. I could possibly vote for Trump this time. nah

No political candidate has my back. I've looked at the tax plans for the three possible candidates. No matter who wins, my stats stay the same. That is the true burden of the middle class. We are like the middle child. We simply exist and struggle to hold the country up.

help please.
 
Last edited:
I already stated that voting Dem in Texas is a wasted vote.

I don't have to do it every time. I could possibly vote for Trump this time. nah

No political candidate has my back. I've looked at the tax plans for the three possible candidates. No matter who wins, my stats stay the same. That is the true burden of the middle class. We are like the middle child. We simply exist and struggle to hold the country up.

help please.

Yeah same in NY only its Republican votes that are wasted. NYs gone with the democrat 8 of the last 10 elections and by wide margins.

I can't vote for either. They both suck.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
What exactly has the democratic party done over the last 8 years?
Well let's see here.....

The recession ended exactly 6 months into President Obama's first term thanks in large part to the stimulus package and the auto bailout. We've now grown the economy and created jobs for over 40 consecutive months. Sadly not as fast as we'd like to, but that is a result of the fact that Republicans got enough votes back in 2010 to filibuster all of Obama's economic packages designed to improve the situation. In fact President Obama inherited -2.8% growth in his first year in office and his second year say +2.5% growth for a grand total swing in one year of 5.3%.

They passed groundbreaking Health care reform that has seen the uninsured rate in the country drop to the single digits.

We killed Osama Bin Laden, and reduced the two full blown wars Bush started to essentially minor police actions that are largely being fought by foreign troops.

We(along with our allies) helped liberate Libya and accomplished in a few short months what Bush couldn't do in 8 years in Iraq. We also did that with basically no American casualties

We negotiated a nuclear arms deal with Iran which should keep nuclear weapons out of their hands for the foreseeable future without needing to murder and kill people in another bloody and costly war.


We normalized relations with Cuba despite conservatives best efforts to convince us they are all just filthy commies hell bent on murdering America.

We helped lower gas prices by making investments in cleaner forms of energy and putting more stringent fuel standards in place down reducing the demand for oil.

We've helped fight for gay rights and to make gay marriage legal across the country.

I could go on for a while here frankly, but it's Saturday and I have **** to do so I'll just mention one more thing. The economy of Europe isn't even close to as strong as ours is today, and the reason is because they implemented the type of Austerity measures that Republicans in this country have wanted. Just keeping Republicans out of the white house in and of itself is the single best thing that President Obama has done for our country. Even if he hasn't been able to pass as much legislation as we'd like, simply blocking Republicans from getting their idiotic mitts(no pun intended) on the country again has been enough to see America climb back from the depths of one of the worst recessions in history.

Hillary Clinton in particular.

I tried to put the main things she helped with in red, but again there's so many more it's ridiculous.
 
I have zero loyalty to any political party on any level.
 
I want to make it clear that "not voting" doesn't mean staying home. It means leaving that part of the ballot blank.
 
This question strikes at the core of a political theory I've had for a while: Independent voters choose the leader of the free world. The political landscape is pretty much evenly divided with a slight leaning for the democrats. And then only in a handful of swing states: Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida; sometimes a couple of extras. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent every four years to try to persuade a very small group to vote for them because the vast majority of people reliably vote for the nominee of their own party. The republicans especially have historically created significant pressure to "keep the team together." There's a political slur with which republicans get labeled if they choose to think for themselves and dare to support a candidate of another party. Speaker Paul Ryan is now being threatened with loss of his position as Speaker of The House if he fails to endorse Donald Trump.

IMHO, the American political culture is a major "group think" society. The political information media is primarily designed to affirm the parties' positions and values to the masses. Right and wrong is often defined by to which political party do the principals belong. Our guy does something questionable and its "lets not rush to judgment" or its a "politically motivated witch-hunt." Their guy does something questionable and we gloat adding the suffix "gate" to the end of its title in order to augment its scandalous characteristic in public discourse. Meanwhile, the small group that breaks the tie and has the power to be king-makers are those who won't let their respective "Big Brothers" control their thinking nor their vote.

Do you vote party line or do you have/would you ever consider voting against your own party?

Anyone who 'votes the party line' is allowing the party to do their thinking for them, and is a moron.
 
I care far less about the body in the White House than the general ideology they follow. The political parties are so far apart on issues which matter most to me, that the choice is really no choice at all. Therefore I always vote for ideology over individual candidate.
 
Yeah same in NY only its Republican votes that are wasted. NYs gone with the democrat 8 of the last 10 elections and by wide margins.

I can't vote for either. They both suck.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Well Golililleee Sgt. Carter.

We've been not cancelling each other's votes for a long time now. lulz!
 
Usually, the candidate I vote for has to be a little less objectionable than the one I don't vote for.
 
I am voting on the local level politicians as we have quite a few good ones here in Virginia Beach and the Hampton Roads area.

Both parties are pretty solid here with good candidates.

I have one democrat pick, and a couple republican picks.

I am writing in Vermin Supreme for president.
 
Do you vote party line or do you have/would you ever consider voting against your own party?

In my part of the world, if you don't vote for Republicans occasionally in the GOP primary, you might as well sit home since in a lot of races the primary IS the election. No chance I'll vote for Trump (or really anyone else who ran this year on the GOP side), but I voted in the GOP primary (Kasich for POTUS fwiw) because of local races I cared about. If the polls had shown a closer race between Hillary and Sanders, I'd have voted in the D primary for Sanders, but she won by 20-30 points, so I voted for two local GOP candidates I wanted to see unseat some really awful right wing nutjobs, and happily they did.

It is funny reading about some of the transformations. I was a reliable republican voter from Reagan (first vote) until the Bush II years. I still can't believe I voted for that guy the first time around. After that, the cognitive dissonance became too much to handle, and I switched allegiances. Around the same time I got sober. Coincidence? :doh

I'm lucky Tennessee is an open primary state and I've never had to or felt any desire to register with either party.
 
Back
Top Bottom