A poll on voting preferences... a contentious issue on DU.

Living in a very conservative area and a moderately conservative state, liberal/progressive voters in my area face challenges like this a lot. I came here to post this and not GD because I believe we're all a little more sane in our group and this (hopefully) won't turn into a flame war. So here goes:

You have two candidates to vote for in the Dem. primary. One candidate is quite liberal. Let's say that she could be compared to Kucinich or McDermott. She would vote Democratic 100% of the time, but he has nearly a 0% chance of winning the general election.

The second candidate is a Democrat, but one who we could only count on to vote the party line 60% of the time. Perhaps he'd side with us a little more than we expect, so the upper edge is 70%. Maybe we've overestimated him, and he'd only vote with us 50% of the time. However, this candidate would at least be a vote for a Democratic majority leader/speaker of the House. This candidate has a 50% chance of beating the Republican.

Each of the Democratic candidates have an equal chance of winning the primary. Imagine that yours will be the deciding vote. Whoever you vote for will go on to the general election.

Their opponent is a staunch Republican who will vote their party line 100% of the time. He will have a 90% chance of beating the liberal candidate, but only a 50% chance of beating the moderate candidate.

Who do you vote for?

This is tough, real tough to decide honestly. Probably the moderate honestly.

It seems like a thinly veiled Pennacchio/Casey poll.

(Not that there's anything wrong with that!)

He's more anti gun control and his anti abortion but other than that hes actually quite economically liberal. I am not from Pa but I know how its politics work, plus my family is from there. I saw some fool call Casey and his father republicans when in reality theyre quite economically liberal. I venture to say I like Bob Casey and I am very pro choice and pro gun control. People who are acting like hes gonna be nothing better than Santorum need to get their heads examined. Anyhow it pains me to say this but a pro life democrat and anti gun control one like Casey will play very well in the area where my grandparents are from, you know like near pittsburgh.

n/t

Oh, well, the moderate. In most cases. But I live that situation, my liberal critter beats the pants off any Republican, time and time again. A little bit of it would be gut feel for the individual and their overall campaign. Schweitzer for example, pretty liberal guy who chose not to take on guns and gays. I might vote for the more liberal candidate in that situation.

or am I just having a brain fart and missing that part of your post?

I guess the same could be said for state legislatures. So, pretend that these candidates are running for any of those offices.

I voted for the moderate but in the real world there would be a lot of other considerations.

First of all, labels such as moderate and liberal are not totally clear. I'm more moderate that the DU consensus on some issues, but not others. If the moderate candidate was moderate in areas where I agree, it would be easy. However, if the moderate was too conservative on more important issues to me where I'm more liberal, I might have a harder choice.

I'm also voting under the assumption that we are talking about 2006 or a situation when the politics is similar. Right now, with the control of both houses so close, and with the Republicans controlling everything, having someone who will vote for Democratic control is especially important. Back in the days when the Democrats were firmly in control of Congress, I would have considered the individuals more than the effect upon control of Congress.

I don't buy into the whole mindset of second guessing who is "electable".

If enough people vote for them, they are electable. If I and a bunch of other people cast my vote for someone, and they come out on top, then it's clear they are most electable.

The reason is that in the real world, he/she would have a better than even chance to win the primary, and also to get Dems to come out and vote in the general election. I don't believe moving to the center is the way to get out the vote. So I'm changing the parameters a bit in justifying my choice.

if the liberal one had virtually no chance of winning in the general election. Maybe some day down the road when Dems are the majority again (or at least have control of the Presidency and one house) I'd vote for the more liberal candidate. Maybe that's what you call selling out, I don't know.

Miracles do happen and elections do have surprises. So I would go with my gut.

That's the purpose of democracy.

win in this situation. That being said however, he would NOT get my vote if he were pro-life. But I don't consider pro-lifers "moderate" anyway!