Big Issues

[lehighguy]

If your like me you hate both parties and feel they are practicaly the same. I found Bush and Kerry so repuslive I voted third party. However, there are time when one must sacrifice principle for practicality and vote for a major party.

We have a lot of different stances on many issues, but some are more important to us. Is there any one issue where you would vote for a major party (or if you already do, the other major party) because of thier stance on that issue alone (supposing thier other stances weren't too repulsive).

Mine is education. If someone offered to switch over to a private school voucher system, and it sounded intelligent and I thought they were honest then I'd vote for them. The major challenege of the next century is keeping our nation competitive now that 3 billion people have emerged from the depths of socialism to join the global marketplace. Education is the most essential part of this. The bar would be higher for Democrats, since the Teacher's Union has them in thier pocket. However, if they really genuinly ditched the teachers union and came up with the right proposal I could actually see myself voting Democrat.

[Jakesta]

Social issues.

The religious right has hijacked Washington.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I'm a libertarian who would rather be a Republican.

If the GOP would stop behaving like a bunch of Dixiecrats and actually become the party of limited government and individual freedom of choice, they'd have my vote.

[ACPlayer]

Ummm, what if the Democrats became the party of limited govt and individual freedom?

I thought your first paragraph strange.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Less likely, I guess.

1. I prefer the party that gave us Abe Lincoln over the party that gave us LBJ
2. The Democrats also have to stop sucking up to scum like Arafat & Sharprton
3. The Democrats have to stop resorting to out-and-out class warfare.

I'll accept that there may be analagous situations with the GOP, but they're still closer to libertarian than the Democrats even if only by a RCH.

[lehighguy]

Try to stick to the OP. What one issue would swing your vote and why. Its a given the person you vote for will have serious flaws.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Try to stick to the OP. What one issue would swing your vote and why.

Easy answer, then. No one issue will swing my vote away from the LP. One issue voters are idiots.

[lehighguy]

Even if you vote LP as I did in the last election, there is concievably an issue important enough to make you vote for a major party. If tommorrow Bush announced he was going to kill random babbies on Fridays's you would vote democrat because you know that LP has no chacne of winning.

As I said in the beginning, while LP or some other party may more closely mirror your entire political ideology, they have no chance of victory. Practicality therefore states that if there were an important enough issue facing the nation you would vote for a party because it had the best chance of implementing/opposing issue X.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

If tommorrow Bush announced he was going to kill random babbies on Fridays's you would vote democrat because you know that LP has no chacne of winning.

Not really, since Bush would have precisely the same chance of winning my state as he did in the last election - 0%.

OK, I get your point. If I had to choose one issue it might be a re-introduction of the draft. However, I've been around long enough to know that just because one candidate says "vote for me, I won't do X and he will", doesn't make it so.

LBJ said very clearly that a vote for Goldwater was a vote for escalation in Vietnam, then he proceeded to escalate in Vietnam.

[ACPlayer]

You want limited govt and freedom. Right?

I could argue that over the last 20 years democrats have given more limited govt and more freedom. If you tried, I am sure you could prepare the same debating points.