More on Cagle endorsing Ford
Frank Cagle, an ordinarily conservative guy, endorsed Democrat Harold Ford, Jr. in a rather backhanded way. I disagree. If you want to send a message to the Republicans you don’t do that by voting Democrat. If you vote Democrat, you send a message that you like Democrats. Instead, if you really have to get your protest vote on, either vote for a real conservative or don’t vote. If you vote, for example, for a guy that has no chance of winning and who, honestly, probably scares your average republican instead of the party-backed candidate, that’s a better message than voting for the opposition.
October 13th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
If you want to send a message to the Republicans you don’t do that by voting Democrat.
As I said in the other thread, the only way the Republicans receive (and pay attention to) the message is if they lose. The same would be true if the Democrats were in power and you wanted to send them a message.
October 13th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
But if you switch your vote to Democrat, the message they’re most likely to hear is that they aren’t enough *like* the Democrats, not that they aren’t different enough.
Situations like this are what third parties are for.
October 16th, 2006 at 10:38 am
[…] I said: If you want to send a message to the Republicans you don’t do that by voting Democrat. If you vote Democrat, you send a message that you like Democrats. […]
October 16th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
markm:
What you’re saying only works if the third party vote causes the candidate to lose in a plurality election, ala Perot in ’92.