This is a follow-up to my last post, entitled “What should my political role be?“. That post got similar responses from all who weighed in, which basically boils down to “please keep doing what you’re doing, except please please vote for the GOP nominee for President in the general election – pretty please!”
Before I get to what weighs on my decision of who to actually vote for in November, let me just say that I don’t see the GOP improving in the foreseeable future. Now would have been the time for me to be proven wrong, and I most certainly wasn’t. Had I been asked to put money on which presidential candidate would get the nomination a year ago, I would have put that money on Romney. The GOP is just too predictable.
How is that? I think in the end it boils down to this: given a handful of candidates, there always seems to be a strong “moderate”. Then there are a bunch of Conservatives, some good and some bad. All the Conservative grassroots pick a candidate to get behind and push their guy (or gal). Even if 80% of the grassroots are Conservative, there are always enough Conservative candidates to split that 80% into small enough groups that the strong “moderate” has little trouble winning with the votes from the remaining 20%.
There are ways to change things, but they all seem to be unpalatable to the rank-and-file in the GOP. The first would be to take a strategy that smaller parties are much more willing to do: hold their nominees to their party’s platform and ideals. If a particular candidate is 51% Conservative and 49% Liberal, the GOP is all too willing to crown him with a political nomination. The rank-and-file will fight for hours on end over exactly what words to use in the platform, getting very passionate about the most minute details in semantics – yet when it comes time to nominate a candidate, they are all too quick to throw the whole thing out and vote for the guy who can abandon that platform the quickest and go after the Democratic vote (and they’ll point out all day long how Reagan won because he got a lot of votes from Democrats). But if the GOP can’t hold their candidates to the very platform they fight so hard to craft “just perfectly”, what’s the point of having a platform at all?
Another way to go about getting a more Conservative candidate would require that Conservatives all line up behind the same guy. It sure is nice to have eight or ten people to choose from when lining up behind a candidate a year before the general election, but it tends to split the votes that will hand the nomination to the best candidate seven or nine ways, leaving an easy path for arguably the worst candidate every time. There almost needs to be sub-conventions before conventions (and actually the Ron Paul campaign has been good at this*). Get everyone who is like-minded behind the same guy so the vote doesn’t get split up and diluted too much.
As long as that continues to be the case that the Conservative vote is split and the “moderate” gets the nomination, my own voting philosophy will continue to be employed when I go to vote. It’s quite simple actually: I always vote for the guy who best matches my own values. In smaller, more local races, that’s usually the Republican, since there are often only two choices and the other is the Democrat. In larger races like that for Senate or Governor, there may be a few more choices, but the Republican may still be the best match for me. In 2008 that wasn’t the case in Minnesota’s Senate race. Norm Coleman was the Republican, and proved himself over the preceding 6 years to be a guy I often couldn’t stomach. He was too willing to get in bed with the Democrats on issues like the environment or national sovereignty. I voted for the Constitution party candidate that year because there was such a candidate.
Actually, if you look at it the right way, we’re at a better place now than we were in January when the Primary/Caucus process began. All but two candidates have dropped out. We have Mitt Romney, who has won over the squishy-middle as should have been expected, and we have Ron Paul, the candidate that personifies the GOP platform and historical Conservatism. If those who have yet to have a primary in their state would stop and consider both candidates, and vote for the guy who really is closer to their own position on the most issues, I think they’d vote Ron Paul if they were really honest with themselves and the process. Likewise, if those delegates to the national convention that are pledged to candidates that have dropped out did the same, I believe there is still time to vote for a Conservative candidate (one with an actual track record of Conservative votes in office). Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen, and the “moderate” is headed toward getting the nomination. In fact, he’s already campaigning as though he has the nomination sewn up.
My Voting Philosophy
As a Ron Paul supporter, and a guy who (Ron Paul or no Ron Paul) has voted Constitution Party for the last three Presidential elections, I get a lot of heat from Republicans who want me to vote their guy. That was what my whole last post was about, and I won’t go into it all again. One of the points of criticism that is often offered for Ron Paul supporters who won’t swear allegiance to the GOP in November even if Mitt Romney is the candidate is that the top candidate often brings people to the polls to vote for candidates further down the line. Maybe, but I’m not the guy to criticize in that regard. I’m much more likely to vote Republican for local office than most voters, and I always go to the polls. If you’re worried about the candidate for my state legislative district winning, beating me up over the head about my vote isn’t going to help, he probably already has it. Same goes for the US Congressional race, and several other races on my ballot.
I just don’t see myself voting GOP for that top spot. I also don’t see that it matters much. Minnesota hasn’t sent GOP electors to the Electoral College since 1972, and probably won’t in 2012. In fact, most of the time if everyone who votes Libertarian or Constitution were to vote GOP instead, Minnesota’s electors would still likely be Democrats.
So those who are worried about how my vote affects other candidates running for office need to either rest easy or find another argument for why I should hold my nose and vote for a terrible candidate just because he has the Republican nomination.
*Those involved in organizing the Paul campaign often hold gatherings ahead of conventions to all pick good candidates to run for party positions. That way, even if they don’t have a strong majority at the convention, they can capitalize on the fact that everyone else is too disorganized to capture more votes. The “slates” with the candidates chosen in advanced is handed out to all of their delegates at the convention, and their people often end up winning in the end.
Just a few days ago, I published a post about my family’s new Home Theater PC. That post focussed on the hardware I used to put together the machine. Today I’ll discuss the software.
I’m very excited about the 
Some time ago, when the idea of an HTPC was first born, I found the nMEDIAPC Red Wood case at Newegg. It is simply a beautiful case. It looks like an old radio, and looks great on the shelf nest to the TV. I could have gone with a simple black box meant to go in an entertainment center with the audio receiver, DVD/Blu-Ray player, and other equipment, but the price on this one was similar to those simpler cases and was too cool to pass up. It’s slightly more complicated than your average case, since it’s made mostly from wood, but nothing too complicated.