Lately I’ve been reading and hearing comments from Democratic Party voters, along the lines of “I’ll probably vote for [XX] because I don’t think [YY] can win.”<\/p>\n
How can I politely put my thoughts about this calculus? Um, well, hmm. It’s nuts.<\/p>\n
You’ve been looking at polls, haven’t you? ‘Fess up. And the person you like best is not on top of the polls. So you’re figuring you’d better vote for the person who is<\/em> on top of the polls, the person whom the polls say is more likely to beat Trump.<\/p>\n Please don’t do this. DO NOT VOTE PER POLLS. You’d be voting for someone whom you think your neighbor might<\/em> be voting for — if your neighbor picks up the phone when a pollster calls and says, “I’d really prefer [YY] but I suspect my neighbor will be voting for [XX] so I’m going to vote for [XX], too. Because…”<\/p>\n That’s circular reasoning. You’re guessing about whom someone might vote for and deciding to vote for your guess about someone else’s guess.<\/p>\n Instead of taking full possession of your vote, you’re relinquishing it to…a poll guess.<\/p>\n A poll is not a ballot. And, worse, the results of a poll are pre-determined by the questions the pollster asks.<\/p>\n Here’s a hard, hard fact: [YY] can’t win if you vote for [XX] because you think [YY] can’t win.<\/p>\n If you’re going to apply “who’s going to win” calculations, go to a casino, go crazy and lose your money.<\/p>\n The only<\/em> consideration in a primary is that we each must vote for the person whom we individually genuinely prefer.<\/p>\n For what it’s worth, here are my general criteria for a political candidate:<\/p>\n On a personal level, I want to vote for someone who is smarter than me, who knows much more about government and its workings than I do, has some patience but not too much, and who has a sense of humor.<\/p>\n I beg my fellow voters to consider all this and vote in the primary for the person you feel most closely reaches your ideals for our president.<\/p>\n In the general election, we’ll all vote for the one selected candidate who will beat Trump out of the Oval Office and into the arms of multiple federal criminal indictments.<\/p>\n Oh, and we’re not trying to elect someone to worship, folks. No god, just a qualified, decent human being will do just fine.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lately I’ve been reading and hearing comments from Democratic Party voters, along the lines of “I’ll probably vote for [XX] because I don’t think [YY] can win.” How can I politely put my thoughts about this calculus? Um, well, hmm. … Continue reading \n