Primary ponderings.

[arib]

The Massachusetts primaries take place on February 5, which is probably referred to as Super Duper Ultra Mega Tuesday, or something.

I'm registered to vote, but am considered "unenrolled," since I don't currently belong to any political party. In Massachusetts, that means that I can vote in either the Republican or Democratic primaries. This leaves me with an interesting thought:

Do I find a candidate that I like (and I'm still considering things), and vote for them, or do I vote against a candidate I don't like, even if I'm not necesarily fond of the candidate I end up voting for?

Thoughts?

Comments

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

That's sort of like my election-year pondering. As an "unenrolled" voter, should I take one ballot and vote for the person I think has a good combination of acceptability and electability, or should I take the other ballot and vote for the person I think has a good combination of acceptability (should he win, G-d forbid) and unelectability. That is, if I want Hillary, should I take a Dem ballot and vote Hillary, or should I take a Repub ballot and vote Guiliani just to deny either McCain or Romney (or Huckabee) my vote and try to put the least electable but still not crazy guy up against Hillary?

Then I think to myself, Massachusetts voters are effectively disenfranchised no matter what I do (as are the voters in all the current non-swing states, til demographics change to turn them into swing states), so why waste energy thinking about it at all? That thought leads me to (in my hypothetical above) taking a D ballot and voting Hillary.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

should I take a Repub ballot and vote Guiliani just to deny either McCain or Romney (or Huckabee) my vote and try to put the least electable but still not crazy guy up against Hillary?

This is kind of my current thinking about what I'm going to do on 5 February. I want Romney not to win MA in a major way. I'm considering voting McCain (because I can't vote for Giuliani or Huckabee and still look at myself in the mirror) to block a Romney win. But the thought of voting for McCain kind of makes my skin crawl, too. I briefly pondered voting for Ron Paul (under the "he's not Romney and doesn't have a snowball's chance), but I got over it.