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I have decided to vote Democratic this fall.
I am a conservative and a Republican party member. I believe in small government, free markets, strong defense, etc., but Bush’s snafu in Iraq is just too much. It overwhelms those issues which for 30 years have made me vote GOP.
Or, the shorter version, Bush is no conservative. The GOP controlled congress isn’t either. I’ve been weighing this one myself. My only request to Der Commissar is at least make a protest vote: Vote third party. Throw your vote away in protest. I did it in 2004 when I wasted my vote on this guy. I think it’s a statement that I am willing to vote for a crazy man over the two candidates offered by the two major parties. This leads us to the quote of the day from Der Commissar:
I must hand it to Bush … I never would have thought there would be a Republican president that could ever persuade me to vote for the Democrats.
Preston Taylor Holmes notes that this seems to be a trend among conservative bloggers.
I’ve been that way since about 2002.
Update: Stuff like this doesn’t help either:
It took the Republicans a little more than a decade to achieve what forty years of Democratic rule accomplished – the institutionalization of corruption. The major difference is that the elephant masqueraded as a reformist, moral revolutionary.
October 3rd, 2006 at 9:53 am
I agree that if you’re going to throw your vote away, you’d better give it to a third party which is more ideologically in line with you than the party you are trying to punish. Whatever message Commie thinks he is sending to the Republicans by voting Democrat, the only message he will send them is that if they want to win back his vote in the future, they’ll have to become even more like the Democrats than they are now.
Worse, Commie’s stunt could result in a Democrat Senate, which in turn would result in another “pragmatic” Supreme Court Justice instead of a genuinely conservative one. Bush may not be a model conservative in every respect, but his track record on judicial appointments is pretty good. In the future, he’ll only do as well as the Senate allows him to do.
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:09 am
I’m really torn by this.
On one hand, why vote Republican? They’re not strong on Defense (the big drawdown began before Clinton, and has us in the pickle we’re in now), they don’t care about immigration reform or border security. They spend like a sailor on shore leave, and don’t care who knows it.
On the other, why vote Democrat? Everything they stand for now I either don’t care about (environmental stuff, abortion rights), or I despise (gun control, people control). They haven’t been “the party of the people” since JFK.
One school of thought says “hold your nose and vote Republican anyway, it’s better than the alternative”.
Another school of thought is stated above.
Both have merits, which are always discussed, and drawbacks. My main issue with “hold your nose” is that no message is sent to the candidates, or the party. They don’t care why they got my vote, they just care that they got it.
The protest vote sends the message, but to what end? Pelosi as Speaker of the House? Oy-Freakin-Vey
The only upside to the protest vote – to me – is there’s only two years till the next voting cycle. Maybe the Republicans need a swift kick in the nerts to get their attention.
I just hope we can hold out for those two years.
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:36 am
Arrrggghhh. I told myself I wasn’t going to get upset today. But this type of thinking — voting for Democrats to teach Republicans a lesson — is pure stupidity. It’s roughly akin to burning your house down in order to demonstrate to everyone how incompetent the local fire department is.
Look, I’m as upset at the Republicans as anyone here. If they had acted like Reagan Republicans in the first place, then they wouldn’t be in this mess. But I’m guessing most of the people who think this way are 30 or younger and don’t remember what the Democrats did the last time they were in power.
Think about it. They’ve spent their entire adult life reasonably secure in the knowledge that the Republicans will keep gun control at bay. They’ve never bought a gun without having to pass a background check; they don’t remember that there was a time when your psycho ex-wife couldn’t go to the police and lie and have them take your guns away.
I’m 44. I remember what it was like before the Brady Law, before the AW ban, before the Lautenberg law. All of those laws were passed by Democrats the last time they had control of Congress.
You want to know what Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid will do when they get into power? Here’s their agenda, simplified:
1. Abandon Iraq
2. Impeach Bush
3. Raise Taxes
4. Ban Guns
(Incidentally, you folks who think Rep. Ford will support the 2nd Amendment as a Senator are sadly mistaken. When Majority Leader Reid comes to him and tells him that his plum committee assignment or his favorite bill depends on his being a “team player” on the .50 cal ban, he’ll vote for gun control faster than you can say “Rocky Top”.)
So when a politically-weakened President Bush signs a .50 cal ban or an AW ban renewal or a gun show ban into law in order to pander to public opinon or placate impeachment-minded Democrats, don’t come whining to me. I’m warning you: You can’t trust Democrats with the Second Amendment.
Believe me, I know from experience.
October 3rd, 2006 at 12:55 pm
I’d expect banning guns to come before raising taxes, but that’s just me.
The “snafu/quagmire/disaster in Iraq” line is getting old, as well. Proudly proclaiming that more troops would have fixed the problems is nice, but it’s not a logical first step or even necessarily possible – equipment, manufactoring, and transport is problematic enough with the current force. And the alternative, not going in at all, just wasn’t feasible : an unallied country with both enriched uranium and Gerald Bull’s Project Babylon technology would destabilize whatever peace remained in the region.
If you think you can get the Democrats to come around to your ideals through persuasion or drives, be my guest to vote for them. I, however, expect Republicans to be easier to pull out of the darkness.
October 3rd, 2006 at 12:55 pm
I, along with a bunch of other gun owners voted with Bush the first time around. At the inauguration I heard a new slogan that’s suppose to be an old Texas saying, “dance with who you came with”. I said, “yea, well we’ll see…”.
Sending dollars and votes their way, so far hasn’t got their attention. Here we are at a dicey mid-term elections and they’re made some noise, but just what have they passed for us before going out on recess? How likely are they to pass the “Blackwater class 3 empowerment act” (HR5005) upon return for teh lame duck session? How likely are they to pass any “sunshine laws” during the lame duck? Never mind the recent noise near these mid-terms, what have they done for gun owners for the past ~6 years? Can we really trust the Republicans with the Second Amendment either? (Note: I haven’t even touched on the smaller, more fiscally responsible bedtime story that we’ve also been told about.)
If sending dollars and votes their way hasn’t worked, what do we have left besides staying home?
October 3rd, 2006 at 1:04 pm
I believe there was the AWB sunset, for starters.
Us staying home doesn’t do anything useful. We end up with a bunch of Democrats in office, and with their economic policy and the tendency for unemployed individuals to vote Dem, it’d be all the harder to get Republicans back in after they’ve cleaned up their act. We want to win, we need to make the possibility of failure obvious, not just act on it suddenly.
October 3rd, 2006 at 1:27 pm
I left the Socialist Party, I can’t go back to voting “Democrat” knowing that they WILL, given the means and opportunity, shut-down the 2nd Amendment they same way they did here in California. If you want to vote for them, look to a future just like we have it here in CA: suing automakers, attempting to sue Oil companies, and run by the Teacher’s Union and Eco-weenies and other special interests – providing voting-rights to illegal aliens is next on the Agenda.
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:03 pm
If you voted your conscience you didn’t waste your vote.
I’ve been voting “third party” since I was old enough to vote the eary 1980s–and I seep very well at night.
Ask people why they are a “Democrat” or a “Republican” and see if they can give a coherent and reasoned response–most people I ask can’t.
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Well, you got me there: Republicans haven’t been the gun owner’s best friend, although they do deserve credit for letting the AW Ban die, passing modest BATFE reforms, and the recently-passed confiscation bill. Overall, they probably deserve a “C” grade, or maybe a low “B” for having the guts to ignore all the media hype about DEADLY ASSAULT WEAPONS! during an election year (2004).
However, there is no debating that the Democrats, at least the ones in positions of power (Kennedy, Schumer, Pelosi, Clinton, et al) are the gun owner’s worst enemies. And it doesn’t matter if the Democrat candidate in your area is personally pro-gun, he’s probably not going to stay that way after he gets to Washington. If he wants any position of authority, he has to tow the mark with the Left-wing Party Brass. And if they decide that gun control is their big issue this session, then a freshman Congresscritter is going to have a very hard time saying no.
At least with the Republicans, the leadership is either solidly pro-gun or smart enough to give the gun owners what they want.
The fact is that NONE of the modest steps that have been taken over the past 6 years would have happened if the Democrats had been in control. There’s no way that Speaker Pelosi would have or will allow a pro-gun bill to pass the House, let alone even be considered. If the Democrats take control of Congress, they will try to pass gun control legislation. As long as you accept that when you pull the lever for your protest-vote Democrat, then that’s cool with me.
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:09 pm
allowing a bad law to expire as planned is not “tossing a bone” to us RKBAers
Bush saying he’d sign it while knowing damn well it was not going to end up on his desk is not pro-RKBA
Inserting the original sunset clause WAS pro-RKBA, but that was 10+ years ago
D’Oh, were they signed into law yet? I’m sorry, I was unaware that any pro-RKBA bill had been sent to the prez. Still, I would hope that any “pocket veto” would be extremely unlikely. Way to finally score a basket after 6 years.
True, but I’m afraid of sending the message “Hey (The Honorable) Repub-O-Critter! I know you totaly lied to us about the freedom, guns, fiscal responsability, and smaller government stuff, but I’ll pull the lever for you anyway. Just don’t do that crap anymore, OK?”
Well, I said “stay home” but yea, I’m “still throwing my vote away“.
Then again, I live in Maryland, in a district that was specially crafted as reparations for past racial discrimination.
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:15 pm
The AWB would have (and did) pass the senate. Bush would have signed. Only the house saved us.
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:40 pm
1. Abandon Iraq = good
2. Impeach Bush= good
3. Raise Taxes= good as long as my tax bracket isnt involved, someone has to pay for the fiasco in Iraq/Afghanistan soon to be Iran.
4. Ban Guns=not good
3 goods, 1 no good. I’m going with the majority.
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:15 pm
The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.
If you think the Republicans haven’t been good on the 2A, you’re crazy-go-nuts to “stay home” for the 2A in November, if there’s any chance your vote would help prevent a Democrat being elected. (I wish that were not so, but the way the Democrat party is today, it is.)
Sending a message is nice, but the message you really end up sending is that the 2A voter won’t vote for you unless you do everything he wants – and everything he wants costs you more votes with other voters. Which means fewer total votes.
Which means the 2A voter gets quite rationally ignored.
Being ideologically pure and not voting for the lesser evil or the marginal good might feel nice, but I don’t see any reasonable analysis where it actually improves the state of gun rights.
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:30 pm
The message I’d like to send is if you critters had just given one little thing, like an anti-conf in emergency bill with teeth OR a serious SMACK to the BATFE (instead of a just a playful spanking) OR ending the sporting purposes language OR given us nationwide recognition of carry licenses (I know there’s some kind of standard mischief that keeps marriage licenses and driver’s licenses automatically acceptable but not carry licenses, regardless, they could have done something)
I’m not just picking on just you, but this is commonly trotted out. If they were serious about giving our block what they wanted, they could have made some progress years ago hoping the other side would just forget about it. instead we get this crap, not at the mid-terms 4 years ago when things weren’t so shaky, but now, when things are looking bad. Real bad.
How stupid do I look?
I’m not a purist, but I’d like to see our RKBA restored just a bit faster than a slug crawling across the salt flats.
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:54 pm
I cant make myself vote for a particular party because of one platform (guns). As much as I lovem’ I cant stand another 4 years of (R) in charge.
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:23 pm
You traitor!! Your now condemned to an eternity in hell for voting for a democrat, don’t ever show your face in church again! Just mail your tithes to us from now on, and don’t forget 10%, more would be great, you know boat payments and all…
October 4th, 2006 at 7:01 am
Yes, you did. Voting is about determining elections, not easing your conscience. If you just vote to get a good feeling, you might as well write the name of your favorite candidate on a paper napkin, and cast that “ballot” into the nearest wastebasket. That way, at least you’ll save the gasoline and the time standing in line.
That’s a little more information than I needed to know.
October 4th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
>Look, I’m as upset at the Republicans as anyone here.
Why should the Republicans care you’re upset? By your own admission you’ll keep voting for them no matter how bad they get.
October 4th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
I can vote for Republicans because of one thing, guns. I’m not in it for my moral vanity or ritual purity. I live in a deep-blue district that’s been gerrymandered to last a hundred years, in a blue state with it’s own AWB and my representation is Feinstein, Pelosi, and Boxer – so I’m a loser. If you want to be a loser too, vote for them and join me.