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As others here have stated, it all depends on the situation, how closely my ideology is matched, as I would rather it be on ideology, but I also do not want my opposing ideology to just have a cake walk either...Another one I forgot to add was experience. If that counts. For example, Governors who become President usually make the best types of Presidents, and are usually more likely to be elected President than other roles (like Vice President, Senator, etc.) and if so, are even more likely to be re-elected President - especially if they had been elected Governor more than once.
So anyway, you can also let me know if you think experience matters, and if so, what types of experience you think are preferable in a Presidential candidate.
A mix. If a candidate was fairly close to my views and had a significantly better chance of being elected than a candidate slightly closer to my own views, I'd vote for the former candidate. If there's one candidate who isn't close to what I believe at all, but is much more electable than others who are closer, then I would not vote for that first candidate, but someone else. It really depends on the specific situation.
I'd factor experience into that as well. It's hard to give a concrete answer because it really does depend on the situation, but I'd vote for the candidate who has the biggest combination of experience, ideology closeness, and electability in a primary.
It depends, in a situation of the "lesser of two evils" I go with electability where I vote mainly against the other candidate. I would prefer ideology though, but that's not very realistic, especially with someone of my viewpoints :mrgreen:
As others here have stated, it all depends on the situation, how closely my ideology is matched, as I would rather it be on ideology, but I also do not want my opposing ideology to just have a cake walk either...
And as regards Governors as Presidents, I would say some of the worst, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, even FDR... they were all Governors...and Wilson has to be the worst President we have ever had... Jimmy was incompetent, and FDR did well with WW2, generally, but wow, did he lead us down a domestic rabbit hole we are still in...
Seeing as how I vote libertarian, it should be exceedingly obvious that I would rather stick to a candidate that accurately represents my morals than to play the "I hate him too but he's better than so and so" game.
Then I would imagine you voted for Gary Johnson in 2012.
If Ted Cruz or Rand Paul is nominated in 2016, do you think you would still vote Libertarian? What I'm asking is more of a "as it stands now, if the election were today" - I already understand that things could change with the candidates by then.
I won't vote for Ted Cruz, but I might very likely vote for Paul. He would have to cut back on his pandering to the old republicans though, but that probably is what will win him the election. I don't want him putting his religion in his politics.
Seeing as how I vote libertarian, it should be exceedingly obvious that I would rather stick to a candidate that accurately represents my morals than to play the "I hate him too but he's better than so and so" game.
Voting for a Libertarian if there are major party candidates in the race is just wasting your vote.
That said, if the Republicans continue to put up unelectable candidates, the country is over.
The Democrats are a corrosive and hurtful force and are undermining the ability of the country to do business.
There is an inverse relationship between adherance to Libertarian principles and the ability to get elected. The same is true of Fundamentalist Christians and Pro-Life proponents. Oddly enough, being a rabid proponent of Gay rights or Abortion does not carry the same bias in the media so the radicals of the Left are not pilloried to the same degree.
Oddly enough, the sex deviants of the left are not portrayed as being so bad as the deviants on the Right are portrayed as being. Also, anti war activists during a Republican Administration are canonized but are ignored by the media during a Democrat administration. Is it my imagination or has Cindy Shehan disappeared from the public scene?
If we had any honest journalists working today, perhaps we'd have a chance of seeing a fair portrayal of the ideas and the philosophies of politics. As things are, the idea has to fit into one sentence and the one sentence has to be understandable by the very limited and narrow sensibilities of the stenographers of the Press Corp. It also has to fit into the narrative and vocabulary supplied by the AP.
AP is the sewer from which words like "gravitas" rise and suddenly every news caster nationwide is using a word they had never heard before that mornings's read of the AP show prep.
Voting for a Libertarian if there are major party candidates in the race is just wasting your vote.
That said, if the Republicans continue to put up unelectable candidates, the country is over and elections will have no impact in any event. We are currently about one election cycle away from an Emperor.
The Democrats are a corrosive and hurtful force and are undermining the ability of the country to do business.
There is an inverse relationship between adherance to Libertarian principles and the ability to get elected. The same is true of Fundamentalist Christians and Pro-Life proponents. Oddly enough, being a rabid proponent of Gay rights or Abortion does not carry the same bias in the media so the radicals of the Left are not pilloried to the same degree.
Oddly enough, the sex deviants of the left are not portrayed as being so bad as the deviants on the Right are portrayed as being. They are shown to us as comically inept bad boys who played too much while those on the Right are portrayed as hypocritical perverts. Also, anti war activists during a Republican Administration are canonized but are ignored by the media during a Democrat administration. Is it my imagination or has Cindy Shehan disappeared from the public scene?
If we had any honest journalists working today, perhaps we'd have a chance of seeing a fair portrayal of the ideas and the philosophies of politics. As things are, the idea has to fit into one sentence and the one sentence has to be understandable by the very limited and narrow sensibilities of the stenographers of the Press Corp. It also has to fit into the narrative and vocabulary supplied by the AP.
AP is the sewer from which words like "gravitas" rise and suddenly every news caster nationwide is using a word they had never heard before that mornings's read of the AP show prep. AP also defines the terms under which we see racists and the ideas that are approved and those that are contraband. It is the agency of prior restraint for the thoughts of the american debate.
I don't agree that if a person votes for the candidate they most believe in, that they are wasting their vote. A truly wasted vote is a vote used on someone they don't truly believe in. THAT is a wasted vote.
As for your statement that the GOP putting forth "unelectable" candidates, that the country is over - if we have to settle for anything less than the best candidate just to win, then it wasn't really much of a country to begin with, now was it.
And deviants on the left not getting enough media ridicule? Not heard enough jokes about former President Bill Clinton and former Acting First Lady Monica Lewinksy, or enough Anthony Weiner jokes? They get their's too.
When it comes to primary elections, or even general elections, do you care more about ideology or electability?
Your beliefs on this can also determine whether philosophically speaking, you're a Deontologist or Consequentialist. More emphasis on the act itself regardless of consequence? Or less emphasis on the action itself and more on the consequence?
Personally, I care more about ideology rather than electability. I'm firm and confident enough in my beliefs that I would rather support an unpopular candidate that I believe in more, to challenge a popular candidate of an opposing party, than to simply settle for a candidate who I don't believe in who is perceived to have a better chance against the opposing party.
When it comes to primary elections, I'll support Ted Cruz or Rand Paul. Preferably on a Cruz/Paul ticket. But if Ted Cruz doesn't run, I'll support Rand Paul over Chris Christie. I don't care if Chris Christie does better against a candidate like Hillary Clinton. I don't care if he's leading her while Paul lags far behind. I would still vote for Rand Paul then.
I believe that if the right candidate is nominated, more passion and enthusiasm can be put in to the campaign efforts after the primary election & convention, and before the general election takes place.
In this decision making, one has to decide their own personal code of ethics, versus the most effective strategy at either preventing damage, OR creating the positive change we seek to have in the world.
Discuss your thoughts on this or if you want, discuss hypothetical scenarios and ask each other questions on this.
I find it morally reprehensible to not vote for the candidate that matches your ideals the best. Playing little voting games based on who might win is the wrong thing to do. Voting libertarian is not wasting my vote. Every vote they get gets them more attention. Most people in America are libertarians but they don't know it. They believe the government should be fiscally responsible, while believing that all humans should be treated equally and have the freedom to live their lives as they choose.
The republicans and democrats really don't fulfill either of these desires. The republicans want to push their jesus values on the rest of the country and get us into war after war, while the democrats think they can "make it rain" and the money will never rain out, while still managing to implement racist solutions to racist problems.
If more people voted for what they actually believed and not just the "lesser of two evils", we wouldn't be stuck in the ridiculous 2 party system we have today, and America would be a lot better off for it.
You are free to vote for whomever you desire, but the game is rigged. A third party candidate needs independent funding that is huge and a whole third party requires billions to put a slate of candidates in office. That's the real world.
You can vote for a candidate who will certainly lose, but why bother? He will lose with or without your vote.
The Senate would have had two additional Republicans for certain and probably a third if the unelectable candidates had been electable. The three I cite were in races in Missourri, Indiana and Nevada. All three had huge leads against very unpopular candidates, but made absolutely insane comments that reflected their personal beliefs that were in truth, insane. They were unelectable, but the races in which they were involved were very winnable if the party had just had the ability to either shut them up or nominate a less idiotic candidate.
Jokes are not the career enders that the media outrage directs against Republicans although jokes are a part of that also.
I would use the term "policy positions" and the phrase "general political viewpoints" more than ideology per se, as I don't believe in an inflexible and rigid political theory.
But I'd say both are important. If a candidate has political positions you find completely unacceptable, then he's of little worth to you... but even if he is a perfect match for your views, if he is UNELECTABLE then he isn't going to accomplish squat except to lose to the other side.
Thus sometimes a certain amount of compromise between the two issues is necessary, if you actually wish to win an election. The problem with rigid ideologues is that compromise is anathema to them, while it is part and parcel of all democratically-structured political systems.
As a population, the American people are beginning to wake up with regard to the deception produced by the slanted presentation of the news. I fear that the voting public, though, is beyond an understanding of the politics of today that extends beyond a slogan.
If it takes three sentences to explain a position that is stated as opposition to a position stated in one sentence, three sentences loses.
The only way to change the body politic is to infuse it with a different population of members. The only viable avenue to get this accomplished is the TEA party that operates as the shunned base of the Republican party. The Republicans aspire to become Democrats and I really wish they all would finally just do so and be done with it.
Nominating TEA Partiers is a good thing, but if those TEA Partiers are Fundamentalists who think the world is only 6000 years old, they are crackpots. TEA Partiers accept those folks because they share the Taxed Enough Already mind set. The rest of the baggage is just so much ballast that is a land mine waiting to blow up the candidacy.
If they can just learn to say that Church and State need to be separate as Jefferson cautioned if asked and avoid the stray comments on different varieties of rape and intelligent design, they might have a chance.
I don't know all the answers about when the world was made but I don't think it's accurate to think someone is a "crackpot" because of that. The liberal media labels freedom-lovers as "looneys" to make people think it's weird to like freedom, and the cool normal thing is to want strict government. But I don't fall for that.
Separation of church and state was made to protect the church FROM the state. Not the state FROM the church.
The fundamentalist view of the world that it is only 6000 years or about that brands the true believes as crackpots and make them unelectable. Whether this is a good or bad thing, it is a real world actual thing.
The Separation of Church and State is it protect both from each other. Please recall that the Divine Right of Kings as it was employed in Europe. The position and rank of the King was upheld by the Church and the position and the rank of the Church was upheld by the Kings. They each needed and supported the other to exist as the dual supremes to control the great unwashed.
This is very similar to the construct currently in use in the Middle East in which the religious authority and the government authority are intertwined.
When the Muslim Brotherhood discarded the Constitution in favor of Sharia Law, the true believers were delighted. The women to be stoned and beaten, not so much. The secularists were aghast.
The phrase you seek is the separation OF church and state, not church FROM state.
I'd always vote for the person who I think will do best for this country. That rarely involves voting for Dem or a Rep on the national level.
I also would like to point out that while I was engaging in phone surveys during the primary a slew of Republicans claimed that they liked Ron Paul's policies but they didn't think he could win. Ironic because if all those people who like Paul's policies actually voted for him then he would have done a lot better during the primaries.
Lastly I do think it's funny at how Republicans nominated the candidate most like Obama in 2012 under the guise of "electability". Donna Brazill announced that Romney was actually the weakest candidate for Obama to face. Republicans did all that pissing and moaning about Obama and then nominated his Caucasian brother. This is exemplified when Obama got 17.2% of the Iowa GOP Caucus.
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I think people should stop worrying about who is "electable" stop following the crowds of what other people think. It makes the individual's beliefs look weak and unstable in their beliefs. As if they don't know who the best candidate is themselves.
I'm not going to sacrifice my Christian beliefs just because other people are wrong. Instead, I remain confident in my own beliefs that I'm right and that I can show others the truth and the reason why it IS truth.
I agree with you.
I'd always vote for the person who I think will do best for this country. That rarely involves voting for Dem or a Rep on the national level.
I also would like to point out that while I was engaging in phone surveys during the primary a slew of Republicans claimed that they liked Ron Paul's policies but they didn't think he could win. Ironic because if all those people who like Paul's policies actually voted for him then he would have done a lot better during the primaries.
Lastly I do think it's funny at how Republicans nominated the candidate most like Obama in 2012 under the guise of "electability". Donna Brazill announced that Romney was actually the weakest candidate for Obama to face. Republicans did all that pissing and moaning about Obama and then nominated his Caucasian brother. This is exemplified when Obama got 17.2% of the Iowa GOP Caucus.
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