# Changing tides: Who has switched their likely vote and why? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 20, 2008, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390 "2008-09-20T01:02:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/21 "2008-09-21T04:02:50Z")
Amazing how relevant these posts are. I suppose since there are almost zero pro-Obama or anti-McCain threads on the Dope, you really have to jump in the very few political threads to make your position known. Good job! ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/22 "2008-09-21T09:21:11Z")
Meh, I was going to vote for Obama anyway, but I used to at least not be too scared of McCain winning. But then as soon as he got the nomination he started changing all of his stated views, I suppose to make the more conservative voters happy, and that pissed me off. I found the change in stance on torture particularly scary given his background. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/23 "2008-09-21T09:47:44Z")
Man, I wish we had a handy issues booklet like Barack Obama has! (And I’m serious.) If you want to click back & forth, though, you can check this out- [http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/](http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/) ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/24 "2008-09-21T12:41:21Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > I agree with **Sleeps With Butterfly’s** comment. Tho it be the slogan of our beloved board, its use does fit in nicely with the overall attitude of the Obama faithful to those of us who have considered another candidate. Just that wee bit of “if only you were smarter you’d understand the One True Path”. I guess I need to counter this with feeling like maybe some o’ you are a wee bit sensitive. For what it’s worth, I _am_ an Obama voter, but mostly because I really dislike McCain/Palin’s politics, not because I think Obama is the next coming of Christ. I do not consider myself an “Obama faithful.” Yes, I like him as a candidate, but he wasn’t my first choice for presidential candidate, and I do see issues with him as a president. Specifically, I worry that he’s more of a dreamer than a doer, and though I like his policies, I fear he lacks the strength to push them through. My reply to **Sleeps With Butterfly** was to simply give a link to an in-depth document outlining specific policy, since he (she?) had said that he hadn’t found any real solutions or plans. I’d just been looking at that booklet and thought to myself “Oh! I know where that is! I’ll link it for Sleeps.” From now on, I will know better than to make jokes in any political thread. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/25 "2008-09-21T13:05:57Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > This is ridiculous. **SWB** said that Obama hasn’t offered any ideas of substance. **Athena** countered her, with a small joke that could only be offensive if you’ve never noticed the banner headline on this message board, with a link to a long document with many of Obama’s ideas of substance. She then apologized for any inferred insult. > > How on earth is that offensive or scorning? I completely understand that Athena meant it as a joke, and it was funny, and her apology was very gracious. The link was helpful and I’m sure it’s informative. But I also understand how one could possibly sense a teeny, tiny bit of the attitude that seems to permeate the Obama campaign. I wish I had time to go back through the hundreds of posts just here on the Dope which imply or even outright state that anyone who even thinks for a nano-second about voting anything other than Democrat is a complete and utterly ignorant ultra-religious, uneducated, stinking rich, gay-bashing, gun-toting breeder who hates puppies and ducks and really wishes they could still own slaves. It’s that level of vitriol that turns me off. I also get turned off by hero-worship and charismatic personalities and women with enemies lists (and both sides have those). I sat in church last Sunday (for those of you who shake their heads in scorn for believers, I was sitting a few seats away from a gay man with a child and a committed relationship…does that soften the blow at all?) and looked at our lay reader for the day…a very strong businesswoman who has started to become more politically active in recent years, and I thought, “now, I’d vote for her in a heartbeat, without even knowing her politics, because I know her and trust her to make good, fair, considered decisions”. and I wondered why it was so hard to find a woman candidate on either side who didn’t have such a mean streak, and why the vice-president candidate on one side makes such a huge difference in my thinking, but so very little on the other side. I didn’t mean to imply that **Athena** was scorning me…not in the least. But that attitude does come through, from both sides of the ticket, if you seem to be in the least bit torn about the decision. And those who gush over Obama’s skills as an orator remind me so much of those who gushed over Bill Clinton’s similar skills, and personal magnetism. And that makes me uncomfortable, that kind of adoration. This is not the easy decision many of you think it is. Oh, and when some political pollster called me a few weeks back, and I told him I was firmly undecided, even though he tried to get me to commit? He hung up on me. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/26 "2008-09-21T13:06:00Z")
Once I realized the Rudy had no chance, I looked for a democrat I could vote for. I came down to Obama and Hillary and leaned to Obama as he was a moving speaker and the policies on his website back in January appeared to be more reasonable and better thought out than Hillary’s at the time. I was ready to vote for McCain in 2000 and looked forward to it, but in the intervening years he pandered too much to what he use to stand up to in the party and I have a good idea of what type of Justices he will select. I could not vote for McCain in 2008 with a viable Democratic candidate. I would have voted for McCain over a Kerry or Gore, but by adding Palin to the ticket, he confirmed everything I saw that lost a lot of my respect for him. As I was still a registered Republican when the New Jersey Primary occurred and McCain was far from a sure thing, I voted for him as the best of the Republican candidates at the time that had a chance. I am still pleased that my top choices (after Rudy self-destructed) from each party are running. I would be much happier with either if their VP choices weren’t so poor. Palin is everything I dislike about my old party and Biden is a general boring old school fairly liberal Democrat that brings nothing good to the ticket and has no attraction for independents. In some ways, Obama may have made the worse choice as no matter how much I dislike Palin, she seems to be helping the campaign, at least for now. Biden has at best, not hurt it. Richardson or Bloomberg would have been brilliant choices pulling in voters that Obama can not count on at this point. Jim ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/27 "2008-09-21T13:37:38Z")
> [@Bobotheoptimist](#): > > Amazing how relevant these posts are. > I suppose since there are almost zero pro-Obama or anti-McCain threads on the Dope, you really have to jump in the very few political threads to make your position known. Good job! :rolleyes: This thread is a focussed discussion for people to talk about why they have moved from one candidate to the other – it’s not “for” either candidate. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/28 "2008-09-21T16:46:13Z")
> [@Plan\_B](#): > > Also reading how Obama is much worse than the average scumbag politician. I’ll bite. How is Obama much worse than the average scumbag politician? ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/29 "2008-09-21T19:29:51Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > :rolleyes: > > This thread is a focussed discussion for people to talk about why they have moved from one candidate to the other – it’s not “for” either candidate. :rolleyes: yourself. Unless perhaps you missed the pro-Obama non-vote switchers that feel compelled to post anyway? And the insults? Posts 18, 19, 20… Three in a row. “This is ridiculous”, “using your vote as a blunt object”, “fuck the face.. so long we’re rid of that godawful nose”. Yup, that’d bring me around to your side if politics and personalities hadn’t. ---
**Author:** ![psycat90](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@psycat90](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psycat90)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/30 "2008-09-21T19:46:37Z")
Did you even read post 18? Because that ‘This is ridiculous’ has nothing at all to do with who or how anyone is voting. Kyla simply noted that for SWB to say Athena’s comment smacks of jackass behavior and condescending attitude was ridiculous. I completely agree with Kyla there, it does seem ridiculous for anyone to have taken Athena’s post as some sort of jab. Athena even apologized, twice now, for any unintended assumptions regarding the sincerity of her post. Are people just looking to get their panties in a twist or what? ---
**Author:** ![Obsidian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/51bf81/32.png) [@Obsidian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obsidian)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/31 "2008-09-21T20:16:24Z")
Not that our votes out here in CA matter, but my husband moved from McCain to undecided to Obama because of Palin. She reminds him of all the worst qualities of Hillary Clinton and George Bush rolled into one person, and he doesn’t want to vote for anyone who’s name keeps appearing on the CNN front page with the words “subpoena” in the same sentence. It might be tolerable if McCain was say, 55 and healthy, but given his circumstances the VP really needs to be up to snuff. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/32 "2008-09-21T20:29:59Z")
As a socially liberal (libertarian) fiscal conservative, I tend to vote Republican. But I don’t like Palin’s and McCain’s social conservativism; I don’t like Obama’s lack of experience; and I don’t like Joe Biden at all. So it’s a bit of a quandry for me. I think I’m voting for Obama, based on the fact that the Republicans have had the White House for the last eight years and made some decisions that I have trouble with, ranging from problematic (Bush’s use of signing statements, the running of the DOJ) to completely indefensible (Cheney’s argument that the office of the Vice-President is not part of the Executive Branch). So I’m comfortable with letting the Democrats have a turn trying to do better. That said, this tenative decision has required me to completely stop reading all political threads on the Boards, because I too find the “We’re right and you’re stupid (or immoral)” mindset of many of our Obama supporters to be so completely aggravating. I too could see myself refusing to vote for him because I have so little respect for the POVs of some of his more rabid supporters. Since that would obviously be an irrational, emotionally-driven decision, I’m no longer even glancing at political threads. ---
**Author:** ![malkavia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malkavia/32/5621_2.png) [@malkavia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/malkavia)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/33 "2008-09-21T20:30:54Z")
> [@Bobotheoptimist](#): > > :rolleyes: yourself. Unless perhaps you missed the pro-Obama non-vote switchers that feel compelled to post anyway? And the insults? I don’t know if this was directed at me, but I feel it’s relevant that I was once willing to vote for McCain (however long ago) and that now I would not. > [@](#): > > Posts 18, 19, 20… Three in a row. “This is ridiculous”, “using your vote as a blunt object”, “fuck the face.. so long we’re rid of that godawful nose”. Yup, that’d bring me around to your side if politics and personalities hadn’t. I will grant you that these posts had a bit of acidity to them, but I believe it was warranted, considering the tone of the post we were replying to. > [@RandMcNally](#): > > I was going to vote for Obama but **the democrats on campus have really pissed me off with their condescending and just plain jackass attitudes** that I am now voting for McCain purely out of spite. (bolding mine) Forgive me for calling a spade a spade, but this man is, in effect, pissing on the hard fought right to vote by ignoring the whole concept and “voting to wound”, as it were. In the process, he’s managing to insult a pretty large segment of this message board. Any respect given to that kind of answer is undeserved at best. /hijack ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/34 "2008-09-21T21:39:50Z")
> [@Jodi](#): > > That said, this tenative decision has required me to completely stop reading all political threads on the Boards, because I too find the “We’re right and you’re stupid (or immoral)” mindset of many of our Obama supporters to be so completely aggravating. I too could see myself refusing to vote for him because I have so little respect for the POVs of some of his more rabid supporters. Since that would obviously be an irrational, emotionally-driven decision, I’m no longer even glancing at political threads. I grabbed your quote, **Jodi** , as the latest example of this complaint. I get what you’re saying, and I don’t want to dismiss your feelings on this at all, but I would like to give a different perspective on the situation. Since September 11, 2000, the conservative movement as a whole - media, politics, religion, and others - has gone out of its way to portray liberals as, at best, befuddled Pollyannas happy to spend other people’s money for pointless causes, and, at worst, as traitors to our country, deliberately undermining the safety and freedom of our fellow citizens and pandering to our enemies for nothing more than a bit of ideological ego stroking. While this was going on, the Republican party and its elected members went about: - politicizing the DOJ - undermining the Constitutionally defined role of the Executive Branch - violating several Constitutional guarantees like _habeus corpus_ - starting a war on questionable, if not outright false, evidence - blowing the budget surplus and putting the country deeper into debt than it’s ever been - alienating most of our global allies - fumbling the effort to bring Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to justice. - letting religious fundamentalists set up shop in the federal government. And now that the Democratic party has a viable candidate and its members are legitimately excited about the possibility of reversing the damage done to our government and country over the last eight years, conservatives keep unloading piles of snark. Obamaniacs. Kool-Aid drinkers. Celebrity worship. So, yeah. There’s a lot of anger on the part of Democrats and liberals (BTW, I count myself as a liberal, but not necessarily a Democrat). Bitterness, even. That after eight years of disastrous foreign and domestic policies and party-before-nation ideology, people _still_ think it’s a good idea to vote for the Republican candidate? Especially when some of them make comments like **Plan B’s** : > [@](#): > > Also reading how Obama is much worse than the average scumbag politician. with no substantiation or context. Even then, most of what I see is Obama’s proponents being enthusiastic about their candidate and critical of McCain and Palin - not insulting, belittling, or being condescending to McCain/Palin backers. It seems to me that these complaints are little more than an excuse to vote party affiliation in the face of eight years of failure. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/35 "2008-09-21T22:01:11Z")
> [@phouka](#): > > I grabbed your quote, **Jodi** , as the latest example of this complaint. I get what you’re saying, and I don’t want to dismiss your feelings on this at all, but I would like to give a different perspective on the situation. . . . It’s not a different perspective; it’s the same exact perspective. Your post is a stellar example of precisely what I’m talking about, and what I so dislike. You cannot refrain from looking behind a Republican’s vote to question their intelligence (“people _still_ think it’s a good idea to vote for a Republican candidate?”) or morality (looking for a mere “excuse to vote party affiliation”). Why anyone, on either side, feels they have to this, is beyond me. I have no idea if self-identifying “liberals” believe that conservatives have ALSO boiled the election down to moral/intellectual certainties (“We’re right and you’re stupid” and/or “We’re right and you’re immoral”), or if they are aggravated by that tendency as well. If so, I would imagine they too are refraining from reading any more political threads on this Board. I’m not really interested in “who started it” or “who does it worse” or who is justified in their POV and who isn’t. Even when such discussions are not actively aggravating, they are IMO beyond tiresome, the very embodiment of boredom. So I’m not reading them, that’s all. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/36 "2008-09-21T22:09:11Z")
> [@phouka](#): > > I grabbed your quote, **Jodi** , as the latest example of this complaint. I get what you’re saying, and I don’t want to dismiss your feelings on this at all, but I would like to give a different perspective on the situation… That doesn’t help. I’m an Obama supporter - actually registered as a Democrat despite loving my Independent self label to go to the caucus. But that is as patronizing as anything. And what the Democrats have in spades is the ability to come off as the intellegentsia “we know what is best for you.” On preview - as Jodi says, its the same damn thing - give her credit for wanting change, and drop it. (Jodi, welcome to the dark side…I’m actually a fan of pendulum politics myself - but the pendulum has been swinging WAY too far Right for my own taste. A rebalance of power is needed.) ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/37 "2008-09-22T05:47:55Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > Huh? “condescending and just plain jackass attitudes”…? The slogan of the Straight Dope is “Fighting ignorance since 1973.” My comment was a play upon that, there was no condescension or jackass attitude intended. Yes, I know it’s the tagline. I’ve always found it a little laughable, since most people are on here to socialize and argue. I read the link you provided, thank you for that. Honestly, it just seems like a more in-depth wishlist of things he’d like to do. I would like to know HOW these things are going to be accomplished. It’s a nice blueprint for what we’d all like. I just feel like I could draw a blueprint for a mansion, but it doesn’t mean I could get it built. Still, I believe he’s better than President Palin. > [@Kyla](#): > > This is ridiculous. **SWB** said that Obama hasn’t offered any ideas of substance. **Athena** countered her, with a small joke that could only be offensive if you’ve never noticed the banner headline on this message board, with a link to a long document with many of Obama’s ideas of substance. She then apologized for any inferred insult. > > How on earth is that offensive or scorning? Do you really think that we haven’t noticed the stupid tagline about the messageboard? Of course you don’t think that, you’re being sarcastic. Most of the time people trot out the “we’re fighting ignorance!” BS it’s done with a certain level of smugness. My experience with people throwing that tiresome phrase around is what made me react to her comment. She says she meant no offense, so fine. But to dismiss it as ridiculous because YOU disagree? Get over yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/38 "2008-09-22T11:53:43Z")
> [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](#): > > Do you really think that we haven’t noticed the stupid tagline about the messageboard? Of course you don’t think that, you’re being sarcastic. Most of the time people trot out the “we’re fighting ignorance!” BS it’s done with a certain level of smugness. My experience with people throwing that tiresome phrase around is what made me react to her comment. She says she meant no offense, so fine. But to dismiss it as ridiculous because YOU disagree? Get over yourself. I honestly think you’re being overly sensitive here. I’m pretty sure I would not be offended if someone used that line with me if I were wrong about something. (I’m kinda surprised that it’s happen, given how often I’m wrong. Or maybe it has and I’ve forgotten.) Whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390/39 "2008-09-22T14:02:49Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > I honestly think you’re being overly sensitive here. I’m pretty sure I would not be offended if someone used that line with me if I were wrong about something. (I’m kinda surprised that it’s happen, given how often I’m wrong. Or maybe it has and I’ve forgotten.) > > Whatever. Did you read what I wrote at all? Based on my experience with people using that line on this board, I thought she was being a bit smug. She says she wasn’t, I accepted that. That’s as far as it went. I had a feeling based on experience. I didn’t ask for her head on a stick. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t accept **your** decision that I was wrong. After reading the information in the 60ish page link, I still find very little information on HOW he plans to achieve these goals. The link provided an in-depth look at Obama’s desire for his possible win, not a plan. A plan tells what you want to accomplish and how you plan to accomplish it. There is much detail on the former, not very much at all on the latter. Saying that you plan to do X, Y, and Z by the end of your first term is great. Saying how you believe you’ll get that done is what I’m looking for. That may be enough for you to make a decision, but it really didn’t answer my questions. In closing, “whatever” right back to you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-tides-who-has-switched-their-likely-vote-and-why/464390.md?page=1)