As a Democrat or Republican do you think you could ever vote for a candidate of the opposite party?
I am a democrat, and when it comes to issues like abortion, i will will always be pro-choice, so i will mostly always agree with my fellow democrats.
However, when it comes to things like foreign policy, and Taxes, i have to stop and truly consider which candidate would be best suited for the job.
I can’t really say i agree with conservative fiscal policies, but i can swallow my pride if i had to and vote for a republican candidate if i felt they were the better choice.
How about you guys, do you guys think you could vote against your own party?
I’m a Dem also…every election, I look at both parties…and I could care less if they are a "D" or an "R"….policies are the deciding factor. Funny though….I have not found a Republican yet I could actually vote for.
It amazes me that people base their decision on one issue…abortion. I too am pro-choice…yet people act like abortion is a mandate. It is almost like they cannot see the forest for the trees. If that was the only issue…our country would be in great shape….but sadly it is not!
Yes. im not that narrow minded
if I vote will ACORN be involved ?
Possible, but don’t bet the farm.
The only modern Republican I can vote for is "None of The Above"
I don’t vote along party lines. I vote for the candidate whose platform I agree with the most.
I don’t really care if thier democrat or Republican. As long as they take care of our country FIRST, then im happy.
Yes.I go for intelligence and common sense,not party.
I have, but usually only on the state or local level.
I like my state senator, who is of the opposing party.
yes, its not only the points you believe in but the PERSON youre voting for
Sure, I have done it many times since I started voting about 38 years ago.
yes, because i’m not 100% conservative / liberal, but moderate
if democrats supported true democracy instead of socialism and had conservative social moral standards… then yeah i’d be a democrat. otherwise i have no other choice but to vote republican in which i don’t really want to… its just by default.
Yes Of course infact i voted for Obama this yr
Provided that they impress me with their views that i agree with
which is why i thought Obama was much more forth coming and had better ideas for this country then John Mccain
If it comes down to what I believe in, and which candidate is running on the platform for it, then yes I could vote against my own party.
Nope, no way, no how, I am pro life, pro death penalty, and I am for the 2nd amendment
I used to be a registered democrat. then, I got a job, got married and had kids. Once I was responsible for something more than my own personal interests, I found I was becoming more and more right leaning on issues. Still, I’m an independent now. I don’t agree with the right on a lot of things. Like, church and state, prayer in school, abortion, and business regulation. However, I disagree with the left on far more issues than I do on the right. Overall, I try to vote for the guy who represents what I think are the most important issues, regardless of party.
Thats why I went independent. The Republicans weren’t doing it for me. But I consider more than one issue. There are lots of pro-choice Republicans (McCain was), and there are a lot of pro-life Democrats. You have to look at each candidate.
There are two factors you have to look at. The issues are only one part. The other part is the candidate himself. Most people tend to vote based solely on the issues.
On most issues, I agree more with John McCain, but I also realize that McCain is a tempermental senile idiot, and Obama isn’t quite as dumb as McCain. However, if I am going to look at the intelligence of a candidate, I also have to look at other important details beyond what they say in the debates. For example, Obama doesn’t sound like as big of an idiot as McCain in the debates, but the fact that Obama has so many associations with people of questionable character and is naive about all of them, makes me question his intelligence.
I don’t care what the candidate’s party affiliation or their moral view on abortion is, I vote for the person that I feel will do the best job of keeping this country on the right track Constitutionally, and in terms of financial solvency, military strength, and emergency situations.
I don’t vote party lines, I vote for the person. My vote would be determined by their platform and history and I have crossed party lines many times.
In a heart beat,used to be a Republican before they jacked every thing up.
Can and have.
Sure I could. I have voted many times for the person I felt was the best choice. I do not take my vote for granted. I like to find out what they stand for, what their plans are, and what they’ve accomplished in the past and how they did it. Then I try to make an intelligent decision based on both the facts and what my gut feeling is about the candidate.
No I would rather walk through hot flames with gasoline under-ware, than to be a republican.
I used to be a member of the Republican party in Texas and I have voted for Democratic senators from time to time…. I also voted for Bill Clinton once and John Kerry in 2004… in 2004, I declared myself independent because I had enough of the social conservatives’ hypocisy… and the fact that my fellow Republicans had a problem with me considering Democratic candidates. I will vote for anyone who I want to…. I won’t be chained to a party even when I belonged to a party.
If the republican party changes, if the democratic changes in a way that is not a good direction, yes I’d switch size for the better man.
I have voted both ways, depending on who is the most "good" guy, and sad to say I have voted Republican many times only to find that I would get screwed. I will never vote Republican again, I have paid lots of attention for yrs and now that I look back and see what the Republicans have done over the past 40yrs, I can see that they are not for the people of this nation at all, rather business and it appears we have a government that has dictated how business is run with the idea of free enterprise and telling people we about capitalism when it is nothing more then a huge lie, we have also been getting raw deal and in such debt that its questionable who really run our government.
I do not vote on abortion issues, it is not my business, what is more important is that a woman has the right tot choose religious beliefs and freedom of good medical safety. Look back over the yrs and see how people voted and what happened in government, I used to wonder what everyone fussed about the Clinton’s being so good for this country’s economy, now I finally get it, I have seen recessions and the yrs it takes to get out of debt from being in one, its a vicious cycle, only the jobs are gone, overseas etc, so with that in mind it was the only time I got ahead of the game and now am back out of the game again, th egovernment is like the leaf truck , you get y our pile of money/leaves and they clean them all up, you get a few tricke down until maybe next yr and they come and get t hem everytime you get a lttle pile,
Sure, I’m a democrat. I was seriously considering Ron Paul. But that’s the first time I ever considered voting for a republican.
Foreign Minister echoes my sentiments completely.
I have to say, honestly, I cannot see myself voting for republicans now, simply because of the whole religious right thing. I know not all republicans are like that, but since they choose this part of their party to represent themselves, I am really not very keen on even listening to them.
If there was a more moderate conservative (wasn’t john like that before) who represented the party, than I would consider it. I believe in some of the ideals of the conservative party, like personal responsibility, fiscal conservatism, I believe that if you are in the country for a significant amount of time than you should really try to learn English (and I am puerto rican), I do not believe in making excuses for oneself (no person of color can truly blame white people nowadays), I have a good work ethic (I make an honest living and i am going to school for my masters) and I believe in family values ……but I do not believe in using God as a platform (because not everyone believes in my version of God) and I do not believe in imposing my view on people (who am I to tell you who to love, or whether or not to have an abortion or what to do in your life?)—This is where I have a problem with republicans.
yes. I’m not necessarily dem or rep. but I tend to vote dem. There have been republican presidents that I liked (not in my lifetime of course). I always open my mind and listen to all candidates. Lately I have not shared the same views as the republicans on the ballot.
Yes, and i have.
Yes I would, but only if I believed in their issues/ policies etc…. I may go Independent next time if there is nobody decent that is running!
Like you, I strongly believe in the core values of my party. While it would be possible for me to vote for a moderate Democrat, I’d be more likely to vote for the Libertarian party or an independent. I have voted independent once in the past for president and multiple times for independents and Libertarians for state positions.
Oh sure. But basically I start voting the other ticket when things get out of whack, one party gets too much power, and/or they begin to curdle, like the Republican Party started to back in 1994. Mid year elections are when I usually react to leadership with whom I disagree, I’d say that’s very typical. I began voting mixed tickets in 1994, started voting against most incumbents of either party in 1998, and completely dumped the Republican Party both at the federal and state level in 2004. Now that the tide has turned I’ll see what the Dems do with their dominance in the next four years, but I won’t make my decisions based entirely on the state of the economy; I think there is some considerable economic unraveling yet to occur and I am concerned about rampant inflation-or deflation, we’re pretty messed up after practicing 28 years of supply side economic theory almost exclusively, so I don’t think things will get back in better balance overnight. Plus there are the issues of Iraq/terrorism and energy, as well as multiple lesser problems and burgeoning crises. I hope the new administration will be able to adapt to the changing situation quicker than the Bush Administration did and not be as adamant about ‘staying the course’ when policy has obviously failed.
Bottom line for me is I look for the Oval Office candidate that I believe offers the best leadership and policies in tune with the Nation’s needs, and vote for the other candidates based on how they campaign, their policies, and what I perceive as balanced power of the three branches of government. Not necessarily in that order or just those three concerns, but I have not typically been a single party-or ever been a single issue voter. I think voting based on single issues is irresponsible, splinters the electorate, and leads to additonal conflicts over things like religion, race and gender as people drag in stereotypes and so on to support their positions on things like abortion, equal rights and immigration rather than considering the express design of the U.S. Constitution.
However, let me take one issue-the relationship between employers and employees-to clarify how I react in the voting booth. In 1981 when Reagan busted the air traffic controllers union, I was-like many people-disgruntled with union power, the poor ROI many corporations were getting from their employees, and the declining quality of American produced products vs. their cost. But over time-and in concert with deregulation, tax breaks and other incentives to industry-even as the economy ramped up and product quality improved along with gains in productivity-the balance of power shifted away from the middle class and lead in part, I believe, not only to the recession of 1991, but the deepening despair of the lower financial echelons of American society. Clinton moderated those trends during his tenure and earned my vote along with more Democratic candidates, but then Bush returned to exclusively supply side economic theory when he took office and knocked the bottom out of the middle class even as they were given a false sense of gain by easy credit and cheap electronic gadgets, which has now come back to haunt us. That’s when I started going more toward voting along party lines in opposition to the policies the GOP was pursuing so vigorously-and ODDLY, as crises began to loom. We needed more balance in the halls of power to better protect the middle class-that vast body of workers which ultimately fuels our economic engine. But instead, we kept pouring resources into investment and guaranteeing profit for employers, which essentially resulted in the manipulation of leading economic indicators and a false sense of security and growth because those indicators were essentially kept alive by debt and a political structure that maintained power by tax cuts and unfunded mandates that shifted the responsibility for the costs of running the country to state and local levels, where property taxes increased even as services got more costly or were being cut both by government and business-such as in education and health care. Had there been a better balance of power, that might have been moderated and incentives for innovation and entrepreneurial effort rather than investment by redefining debt as wealth could have kept us more competitive in the global market and poised to avoid the calamity that has befallen us economically. Could have. You look at domestic automakers and by the late 1980s and early 1990s they had quality and were gaining a competitive edge, but there was too much emphasis on buying and selling and sucking out profit rather than innovating new product. We even elevated individuals to heroic status based solely on their net worth and pretty much totally ignored anything else such as product quality, product innovation or fair treatment of employees. Cut ‘em loose, cut benefits, go offshore…don’t worry about the future as long as you can suck the domes
The corporate entity tries to jump on board the machine with the better popular opinion. Voting inverse is a nobrainer