Tomorrow is the day

[LDB]

for those of you who get a thrill running down your leg by voting your feelings. It's your next opportunity to effectively vote for the worst candidate by voting for the feel good with no chance in you know where of actually winning candidate. It will give you practice for 2016 when you vote for the worst national candidates who will do everything in their power to ruin this country, just as your current candidate has done.

 

[pelicn]

Tomorrow is the day they re arrange the deck chairs again...

 

[mjmsprt40]

Being told endlessly that my only choice is between the Democrat and the Republican is getting very old. What happens if BOTH major candidates are reprehensible?

I voted (absentee) because I couldn't be sure I would be able to vote in person today. For the most part I voted straight (R), which should make some here happy. I had to go Libertarian for governor, for the reason I've just mentioned. The Democrat incumbent, while not being notably corrupt, is proven incompetent. The Republican--- I try not to think about that. He gives me bad vibes though. So-- libertarian it is.

Special note: We never will get any other than trash candidates so long as we insist the Democrat/Republican Kool-Aid is the only stuff available. Choosing which trash candidate restricted only to (D) or (R) is something that has to go.

 

[xmudman]

What burns me is the closed primary, where you can't cross party lines to vote your conscience in the spring, like you can in fall. If your state has open primaries, consider yourselves lucky.

 

[Turtle]

Lucky, except for the fact that open primaries often poison the process. Primaries are chiefly a function of the party, not the general electorate. The party is trying narrow down to the best candidate for the actual election. If you have a Republican party primary in an open primary state, for example, Democrats could organize and cast a bunch of votes for the Republican candidate they think their Democrat candidate can beat in the general election. That's happened.

In addition, in the open primary moderates and independent voters can vote in either party. This can and does dilute the vote of a particular party and lead to a nominee who does not represent the views of that particular party.

 

[mjmsprt40]

Open primaries are how you get McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012. McCain could not have won the Republican nomination without moderate and liberal cross-over votes, and of course none of those folk are gonna vote Republican in the general election-- thereby assuring the Democrat of a win. Romney-- same kinda deal. No way he could have gotten nominated in a straight-up Republican-only primary system, he depended on the very people who won't vote for him in the general election.