I have been registered as Libertarian my entire life. I voted for John Hospers in 1972, my first presidential election, because I was lucky enough to live in one of the two states he had presence in and have voted for the Libertarian presidential candidate (with varying amounts of enthusiasm) every cycle since then. Since all politics is local, for state offices I have voted other than Libertarian from time to time, the most noteworthy when I voted for the Democratic sheriff’s candidate to throw that bastard Arpaio out of office (it took two tries to do it).
After watching the train wreck of the last presidential cycle, though, I have decided to change my course; the danger to my country is otherwise too great. I will register as a Democrat or Republican in an an attempt to have some influence during the primary election in pulling that party back from the wingnut faction of said party.
The problem is determining the party over which my single vote would have the greatest influence. Frankly, I am leaning towards the Democrats as the thought of affiliating with those MAGA assholes makes me throw up a little. So how about it, thinking Republicans? Can you persuade me into helping you pull your party back from the brink?
Not a Republican but isn’t it the presence of those “assholes” that you are wanting to offset?
I can see two ways to think about this:
Which party is more currently dominated by wingnuts and thus has more of a desperate need for what you consider to be less wingnut support?
Which party’s primaries are likely to run closest between the faction you consider wingnut and the fraction you do not?
The two may have different answers.
I suspect from your op that the GOP wins on question 1 - you see the Make America Great Again faction as complete assholes and they are clearly dominant right now. If the party is to be moved off of that it needs more who have a different POV voting in its primaries.
But on question two the Ds get the nod for exactly the same reason. The wingnuts are overwhelmingly dominant in the GOP right now and the possibility of a few votes tipping the scale is unlikely. On the D side there is a real competition of ideas (more than just “progressive” v “centrist”) going on in the primary marketplace and the power of a single vote in those primaries is thus enhanced.
It probably depends on your locale. Who is running for your statewide and local elections? Ideally, to offset Trump, we want a strong Democrat against a weak Republican in as many races as possible, like the Alabama Senate election with Doug Jones vs Roy Moore. So whichever party registration helps make that more likely would be most effective.
If you’re still in Mesa, then register Republican. You can vote for sane Republicans over some of the extremists, that’s just as important for your state rep and state senators as it is on a national level.
I stayed a Republican for a long time on the basis that I could at least vote for the sane Republicans in local and state elections and vote for sane Republicans in presidential primaries. I could help swing the party back from the wingnuts.
2016 finally broke my ties with the GOP. Put aside Trump. There were sixteen other candidates who announced for the nomination - and only one of them (Pataki) is somebody I would have considered voting for.
I realized the wingnuts have taken over the party and it can’t be saved from them.
Trump’s election also destroyed the theory that a primary voter can help the Democrats win by false flag voting for the worst possible Republican.
Arizona has open primaries for all elections except president, so it’s not quite as critical as it might otherwise be in states with no open primaries.
I am not a Republican, but I have to say this now, while you’re on the fence. Consider that there is no such thing as a moderate Republican. As proof, I ask you to consider how many congressional Republicans have dared stand up to Trump. McCain is a lone wolf example. Trump insulted his misfortune while serving, and I’m sure McCain was just waiting to stick it to Trump. My point is that “moderate” Republicans are not going to stand up to Trump or help remove that throwing up in your mouth feeling. The only way to do it is to register and vote Democratic. That is all.
A strategy I employed when picking registration back when I was 18 in a closed primary state was registering for the smaller party. I was and still am a touch right of center with neither party being a good fit. I was slightly leaning Republican but the fact they were outnumbered and my vote counted for more in determining the general election ballot sealed the decision.
You are more likely to find a candidate that fits your political leanings in the libertarian-leaning portion of the Republican Party. That’s more of a strategy to maximize the odds of being able to vote for the non-Libertarian closest to your political positions. It’s not focused on maximizing influence within a single party.
Registering as unaffiliated gives you the most flexibility, if I’m reading this right. It looks like a hybrid system where the unaffiliated can pick which party’s ballot to vote on. Those registered with an affiliation can only vote on their party’s ballot. Till you have to declare for the 2020 Presidential primary that seems like a smart choice of affiliation even if it doesn’t answer the question about which ballot to take most of the time.
There’s the other AZ Senator, Jeff Flake. But you are correct on the larger point: The Republican party has almost to a man (or woman) prostituted itself not only to Trump, but to policies that are simply not in the best interest of the country: needless wars, reckless fiscal policies, anti-science rhetoric and policies…
An opinion (the wingnuts in the wheelhouse) I am getting firmer on every day.
:smack: A detail I had forgotten. It’s not quite open all around, but if you register as Non-Partisan you can collect any party’s primary you like on election day.
True, there are more libertarian-leaning Republicans than Democrats, but that’s sometimes due to circumstance. I remember once looking as a Republican congressman who had a ‘libertarian’ score in the low nineties. This was mainly due to the fact that the House originates the spending bills and he had voted against every one. On the social side of the axis he wasn’t so hot. Every time a much rarer bill sticking it to minorities came up, he voted for those. This was a long time ago, before all teh gays started getting uppity but he’d probably would have voted them down as well. Those few negative votes were not enough to offset the tax votes.
That is correct (see my reply to John Mace above). As of today, I have registered NP.
It’s against my nature to join any political party, but I might as well be a card carrying Democrat these days. I’m not sure I would vote for even the sanest of Republican candidates because one way or another they will end up supporting what the party has become these days. And that’s a real shame. I think there is value in having a divided government, but not when one party is full of nutcases who don’t seem to give a damn one way or another about the country as a whole.
This. Without (I hope) sounding too noble, I have put the interests of my country above the interests of my party. If only more elected Republicans would do the same.
For a couple months now I have been wading through six years worth of episodes of the Extra Credits channel on YouTube. While mainly interested in what makes a good computer/console/smartphone game or the gaming industry in general, they do touch upon gaming’s impact in the real world, such as asking what makes a good educational game. Last night, by total coincidence, I had reached their three-part series on how to incentivize Congress to do the right thing – for the country, not for gaming.
Part III mentions how gerrymandered districts concentrated enough people in one party into a district to the point that, while the representatives of that party no longer had to worry about being elected in the general election, they did suddenly have to worry about the primary wherein enough of the wingnuts were available to force them into taking positions they would not ordinarily take in order to prevail in the primary.
The series was posted in December 2013, some three years before the 2016 presidential election.