There was talk in Michigan of turning Obama supporters for Santorum. I was actually hoping here in Democratic-heavy Wayne County that there was going to be a heavier push to get votes out for Santorum. I thought my vote, along with my wife’s, would be part of a bigger movement to take delegates away from Romney here. Didn’t happen. Ah well. I did take a picture of my ballot with the little oval blacked out for Santorum. It’s now filed under “Things I never thought I’d ever do, even if I lived to be a senile old coot.”
I’m curious what the motivation is for “messing” with numbers.
If you don’t like Santorum because of his extreme social conservatism, won’t voting for him send a signal to Romney (and the Republican party as a whole) that he should be more socially conservative? (Fill in any other way that they differ, and this still works).
If you think Santorum has a chance of actually getting the nomination, and you’d prefer that because you think Obama will have an easier time against him than against Romney, that seems dubious to me. I don’t think the risk that you’d end up with an even worse President is worth trying to stack the election like that.
FWIW, I’m going to vote for Paul for the reasons Tom Scud mentions. I’d love to see a Republican party closer to what he stands for (well, most of it), so I’m casting my vote to send that signal.
The longer this fight goes on, the worse these guys all look. Letting one guy establish “momentum” with voters, donors, media, etc. will move this race toward Obama sooner than I’d like to see it moved.
The continuous circular firing squad is more effective at damaging Obama’s eventual opponent than anything Obama could say or do. Plus, as this drags on, these guys continue to say shit that can and will be used against them in the general. Not only that, these guys are raising money to fight their fellow Obama-haters, instead of raising money to fight Obama himself. Obama and the DNC, on the other hand, are just raising money to fight whichever wounded warrior he’s going to face this summer and fall.
That’s why I voted for Santorum. To make Romney look weaker. Whether my vote was effective at doing that or not, well that’s obviously debatable. But I guess the effectiveness of *any *single vote is somewhat debatable.
No way. (PR: Primary 18 March, open)
I want people who stand for what Santorum does to be marginalized, not emboldened, and certainly not in a position to demand that the near-normal person eventually nominated must include even more wacko planks in the platform. Even if Santorum were to get a pasting from Obama in November, and that is NOT guaranteed, the Cons’ reaction would STILL be: “Next time we have to nominate an even MORE HARDCORE reactionary!”.
Besides, looking across the land I fear the American Electorate caring more that their gas hit $5.24 a gallon in summer than whether we killed Bin Laden, bailed out Detroit, made contact with aliens or the Republican candidate was photographed fellating his running mate aboard a gold-lined LearJet with Bernard Law at the controls and Bernie Maddoff serving the drinks. I’d rather at least count on a near-normal person to benefit from “OMG5-dollargasnothingsmoreterrible” hysteria.
Looks like Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia are open primary states, and Alaska, Georgia, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia vote Tuesday. From here. I can’t figure out what “semi-closed” means, so I left that out.
No, because if he receives enough votes he might think people actually take him seriously, and plan to run again in the future. I want him to go away more than I want Sarah Palin to go away. She is stupid but not dangerous. He is at least moderately intelligent, and poses a much more substantial threat to reproductive rights and a secular government.
Oh I don’t know. Imagine the look on his face when he gets to the prom and the pig’s blood hits him.
Semi-closed means you can vote if you are independent, but not if you are registered for the other party. Note that, once you make this vote, you will not be able to vote in the other primary.
I wish this were in the Elections forum; I have a retort I’d love to make.
No I’m Republican and I want Romney to be the nominee.
Are you old enough to vote this year, Qin?
I would not vote for Santorum if his death squads held rifles to the heads of my children.
No, I ought to have added that. I find it interesting, BTW, that there is not one Santorum supporter on this board.
I would like to believe that if Butt Foam won the GOP nom, Obama would cruise to an easy reelection, but my faith in the electorate is not that strong. If Obama were to lose, I’d rather it be to Romney than any of the other candidates by a factor of a zillion. My state is a closed primary and I’m a registered Dem, so it’s a moot point.
Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense to me.
What is it about Santorum that would make even Democrats go vote for him?
Ignoring any response that says, “I want Obama to win”. What is it about Santorum that causes so much hate, adversity, or mistrust?
His naked, unrepentant bigotry is a big one for me.
Bigotry is a general term that emcompasses many opinons including religion, sex, ethnicity, etc. Bigotry in terms of what? Is it bigotry in general or a particual bias that is grating?
I understand he is a staunch Catholic. Does that cause problems for most people? No just you. What appears to be the opinons of your peers? And how strong do their opinions of Santorum appear to be?
My family are all “staunch Catholics”. They all loathe Santorum like poison.
To be more specific:
-He compares homosexuals to people who have sex with animals, pedophiles, etc.
-He’s anti-birth control, and says that people shouldn’t have sex for pleasure
-He feels that separation of church and state is wrong, and that JFK advocating it “made him want to vomit”. (Without even realizing that Kennedy was living at time when there WAS a great deal of anti-Catholic bigotry)
-He’s stated that Obama wants people to go to college to be “brainwashed”.
-He doesn’t believe in a right to privacy and believes that birth control is “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be”. At one point he said that the availability of birth control increases the number of babies born out of wedlock.
-Despite the fact that he lived in Virginia, he managed to get tax credits from PA, claiming that he had a residence in PA, so that he was able to use a Pennsylvania online charter school. (He and his family never even stayed in said residence, and I believe it wasn’t even furnished)
We here in Pennsylvania kicked him out, with good reason. Fuck him.
As a Pennsylvanian, I am proud to say I never voted for Rick Santorum, and I have no intention of messing up a perfect record. So even if it was possible for me, no, I would not pretend to vote for him in the primary just to mess with Romney.