What Now? Who Do I Vote for in the Primaries and Why?

Politically, it’s crunch time. If you want to have a choice in candidates, then you must make a choice and make it now. In November, you will be lucky to choose between two, maybe three viable candidates for President. Right now, your choices are much wider.

While I hope to eventually persuade Americans to revise their approach to politics, the reality is we must make our choices within the way political business is being done now and from among the candidates who have chosen to run.

For the moderate centrist and/or independent voter, the same issues emerge. How do you choose between the lesser of two evils and cast your vote to have the most influence? I would suggest you begin with the following guideline.

It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.

Don’t think in terms of who to vote for. Think of making your choice as you would if you were a parent or a business owner. Think of terms of being a parent making a disciplinary decision or a business owner deciding about hiring or firing an employee or vendor.

You would not buy a teenager who was a discipline and performance problem a new car. That would be rewarding bad behavior. You get more of the behavior you reward. To change behavior, you must give an incentive for change.

Think of your voting decision in the terms you would as an employer:

 Has the vendor you hired performed well enough to earn their bonus?
 Has the vendor you hired performed well enough to deserve being re-hired?
 Will a new vendor offer you better performance than you’re getting now?

Politically, I suggest you answer those questions by substituting the words politician, party or candidate for vendor and looking at three general areas. Those areas are social tolerance, fiscal responsibility, and performance within the bounds of limited government that still yields the most robust national defense possible.

I have in the past voted for both Republicans and Democrats based on objective assessments of past performance and the potential of future performance. My objective assessment of the coming election is this. For the Republican Party and the office of the Presidency, the answer to my first two questions regarding the three general areas is NO. The answer to the third question (with a couple of exceptions for individual candidates) is highly unlikely. Here is why I give those answers.

The Republican Party offers only more of the same bad behavior it has been providing us for the last 7 years. In fact, when you listen to the Republican Presidential candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee), they are unrepentant about what has gone on and offer a continuation of current policies. Specifically, Republicans have:

• Corkscrewed us into a war we seem unable to win or withdraw from.
• Put us on the edge of national bankruptcy with a debt exceeding $9 Trillion.
• Exceeded the bounds of the US Constitution with actions that broke US law.
• Favored the rich economically at the expense of the middle class and the poor.

(For more specifics, see the linked article in our blog by Joe Galloway in the entry entitled Why is Politics So Delusional?)

Even more troubling is the Republican Party’s attempt to impose religious values through government mandate. Observing the current activities of Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee is highly revealing. To briefly re-cap, each is trying to ingratiate themselves with the evangelical vote that has predominately aligned itself with the Republican Party since the 1980’s.  Romney felt the need to make a specific speech about his religious beliefs because of the ascendancy of Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister. Giuliani has obtained the endorsement of leaders of the Religious Right to counteract his positions on abortion and his personal history.

I understand the desire of people to elect someone who reflects their personal beliefs. I support the rights of people to persuade me to adapt their beliefs about how people live their lives. If their methods stopped there, that would be fine, but they don’t. The Republican Evangelicals’ desire is to elect someone who will use the power of government to impose their religious beliefs on all Americans. (For more detail, review the Monkey Head Theory in my book or the Three Circle Theory of Politics in my Blog.)

Let me illustrate the issue for you with these questions. Do you want the freedom---

• To resolve all questions regarding your health and reproductive choices in private consultation from among unrestricted choices available to you and your doctor?
• To make the end of life choices according to your own best judgment without interference from the religious dogma of others?
• To make your own private sexual lifestyle choices with another consenting adult?

If your answer to these questions is yes, then you should not vote Republican. Voting Republican is enabling bad behavior. If you are asked after voting why you voted as you did, tell the pollster this. You refuse to vote for the Republican Party again until it agrees to get out of your bedroom, out of your doctor’s office and away from your death bed.

Don’t be swayed by the inevitable counter-arguments of Republicans that they offer fiscal responsibility or superior national security. They don’t. They replaced individual welfare with corporate welfare and corruption. They doubled the National Debt in 7 years. They are not steely eyed warriors. They are shifty eyed war losers. (See our Blog’s posting, Are We Doing Exactly What Osama Bin Laden Wanted Us to Do? The short answer is yes.)

By punishing bad behavior, (losing elections is the ultimate punishment for political parties) you will provide the incentive for new and better behavior, as well as better voting choices in the future.

Not voting for Republicans means voting for Democrats, Greens, Libertarians or perhaps even the new GOOOH  or Unity08 candidates. Whoever you vote for, you should not give them a blank check. Your vote should come with some conditions and the admonition that you will be willing to vote for someone else next time if your conditions aren’t met. We’ll talk about what those are in another entry.