Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Are Republicans Wasting Their Votes?

I have had a couple of conversations since early voting began yesterday with long-time Republican voters who are chosing to vote in the Democrat Primary. They are attempting to chose the candidate that they perceive is easier for Republicans to defeat in November, which is Hillary Clinton.

What I am concerned about is whether this is a general trend among Republicans. If this is true, our down ballot conservatives will be hurt as their regular voter base will be voting in the wrong primary. When conservatives vote in the wrong primary to try and make a difference in the Presidential race, they allow the fox to guard the henhouse in the down-ballot races. The Texas House could be decided by tax-and-spend Republicans and their cronies.

When you decide to vote in the Primary, you need to make your decision on your local races and your State House races. Incumbent conservatives like Betty Brown, Phil King, Nathan Macias, Bill Zedler, Frank Corte, and Doc Anderson are depending on their conservative constituents to vote in the Republican Primary, not the Democrat Primary. In the open seats, Mike Pearce, Bryan Daniel, and Randy Dunning are counting on conservatives to vote down the ballot in the Republican Primary.

Remember, all politics is local. If you chose to vote up the ballot, you will forget to vote locally for the Republicans who are fighting for our conservative values in the Texas House.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Conservatives need to vote for conservatives.

And more the pity because of the screwball democrat primary rules are such that their votes dont even matter! the votes are watered down by caucus picks and the proportional allocation. Result: no much difference in delegate count unless its a blowout.

There are important statewide and local primary races where conservatives can have an impact. the presidential race is already decided - Hillary is toast.

Anonymous said...

I agree. Getting cute with the primaries is a fool's game. We need to keep GOP vote totals up or we will look like a marginal party (and if Huckabee wins it will hurt McCain).

MJSamuelson said...

It sickens me that perfectly sane Republicans will turn nutty in a presidential election year. Our daily lives are affected much more by what our Congress, state legislatures, and local governments are up to than by who is or is not in the White House. There's only so much we can do to affect that race - knowing as we do that we're not going to get anything we like in November for president, we must concentrate down-ballot to counteract any negative effect from the White House in the next four years.

It baffles me that Republicans think they can actually affect the Democratic primary at this point in the game.