I’m not 100% sure what all will be on my ballot as yet, but of the candidates I know for sure will be on the ballot, I’m currently planning on going all D’s this year. So the answer “might” be yes, but not because I vote a straight ticket. Just happens to be the candidates I favor this year. I’ve cast ballots before with one party, two parties and three parties represented.
Good example though is the Senate race in MN. Norm Coleman, the Republican incumbent is running against Democrat Al Franken and Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley (the IP is a 3rd major party in Minnesota and has been since Jesse Ventura became our governor). In 1998 when Ventura ran for governor, he was running in a race with no incumbent against Norm Coleman – R (who was at that time nothing more than the former Mayor of my home city, St. Paul), and the grandson of former VP Hubert Humphrey, a Democrat. I felt Coleman had done a horrible job in running St. Paul…he had given huge tax incentives to big companies to move into St. Paul, but then allowed them to skip town and move their operations in some cases the next year without seeking to get any of that money back. He had run for Mayor as a pro-choice Democrat, but was descended upon by Washington Republicans who converted him by promising him bigger and better things if he’d come to their side. Overnight he became a pro-life Republican, abandoning every prinicpal he’d ever stood for (he made a huge name for himself as a war protestor in college in the 60s). Seeing him cozy up to the right made it clear he was nothing but an ambitious politician who kept his finger to the wind (finger to the wind Coleman is actually his nickname these days).
My biggest concern was making sure he didn’t become our Governor. I was going to vote for Humphrey, just because he wasn’t Coleman and at the time 3rd parties didn’t win. But Ventura threw his name in, and I laughed, I would never vote for a celebrity because of their celebrity status. I always had a hard time believing that people like Clint Eastwood, Sonny Bono and Fred Grandy had become politicians and had actually been ELECTED.
But Ventura laid out what he stood for, and I by and large liked it better than what the Dems had to offer. At 15 days before THAT election (where we are today 10 years later), I was voting for Humphrey. The day before the election, Coleman was leading in the polls, Ventura had more support than Humprhrey and had very rapid momentum, picking up something like 12 points in 2 days in the polls. I cast my vote for Ventura, as did 37% of Minnesotans and he became the governor. I wasn’t thrilled with his performance overall, but I think he did better than the other guys, and the thing is, I wanted to throw my support ultimately to the candidate who could beat Coleman.
Now it’s deja vu. Coleman is running for Senate, against a Democrat and an Independent, and one of his challengers is a celebrity. This time I also wouldn’t vote for Franken due to his celebrity status, but I’ve read all his books which were written before he threw his hat in the ring, and I agree with him 100% implicitly on what we need in a lawmaker, and in the things that are wrong with Coleman, whom he has taken on personally in print. He saw the same things I saw and was deeply and personally offended by some of the things Coleman has done in ways that didn’t even impact me directly, but I see why Franken is running, and I support his cause on a purely ideological basis. Barkley is a good guy, with some good ideas, and he’s doing well in the polls. I like Franken’s ideas and ideology better than Barkley’s, but for me, this is as much (if not more) about ejecting Coleman from office as it is about voting for Franken. So, if we get to election day and suddenly it’s looking like Coleman has 40% of the vote, Barkley has 35% and Franken has 25%, though I’d rather vote for Franken, that kind of poll and the momentum it would represent would tell me that here, if I voted for Franken because he’s my candidate (the way I’m voting for Obama because he’s my candidate), I may help condemn us to 6 more years of Coleman. So, I might have to vote for the Independence Party candidate if he ends up being the most viable candidate, the same way I’d have rather voted for Nader or Kucinich in 2000 and 2004, but had to vote for Gore and Kerry in hopes of keeping Bush out of the White House.
Composing members:
0
Composing members:
0
