Comments on: Who would you vote for?

By: Richard Rush

Richard Rush — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 22:00:41 +0000

If this were a primary election I would hold my nose and vote for B. I think people like A who allow their religion to establish or justify their beliefs are more unlikely to allow reason to enter their thinking.

If this were a general election I would hold my nose and vote for the Democrat. I would rather have a containable religious fanatic on the Democratic side of the aisle than risk tipping the majority to the Republican side.

Nowadays, in a general election I would vote for a Democrat I believe is corrupt rather than a decent moderate Republican, and then try to get rid of the corrupt Democrat in the next primary election.

By: Jay

Jay — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:12:00 +0000

They are both dumb as dirt. If I had to vote for one of them, I’d vote for candidate A, who can probably be pressured into doing the right thing.

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 03:12:33 +0000

Thanks for some really thoughtful and well argued positions. I hope you enjoyed the exercise as much as
I enjoyed reading your responses.

By: Reed

Reed — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 19:31:24 +0000

Hated ‘em both, so I didn’t bother to play the endgame. I wouldn’t vote for either. I would vote for . . . C. Because there is ALWAYS a “C,” despite the prevailing binary mind-set.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:48:47 +0000

once again another dishonest “choice” presented to us by Mr. Kincaide.

There is another choice, but he would remove that option. Do not vore for either, if you cannot be a multiple issue voter, then maybe you shouldn’t be voting.

This is also just a dovetail on the Barney Frank flap over the Victory fund, and ZTim is trying to tie a bunch of dis-similar items together to try to prove a point he couldn’t artfully make in prior postings.

Now, given Tim’s propensity to forgive religous leaders for THEIR hateful Speech, one must wonder why the Democrats religous reasoning is somehow not viable, but when talking about Osteen and the entire subject of religiosity, he seems to be able to forgive the right leaning individuals.

It seems to me that Tim would rather forgive any right leaning individual over left leaning individuals when it comes to religous beliefs.

And it also seems as if Tim is willing to sell out the LGBT community to promote his conservative agenda.

By: gsingjane

gsingjane — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:50:59 +0000

I must say, I don’t really see how this post is itself hateful or promoting hate. It’s a situation that many people find themselves in, and deciding which is the lesser of two evils is unfortunately something a lot of us deal with. What do you do about a friend or a co-worker who is a perfectly nice person in all other respects, but uncomfortable with or religiously opposed to GLBT rights? What about a family member? Do you always “drop the atom bomb” on someone right away or do you give them time to get to know and like you, with the idea of applying gentle persuasion in the future? A lot of issues that come up around GLBT rights, in society, aren’t necessarily susceptible to pat or black and white answers, and saying so isn’t being anti-gay.

By: Priya Lynn

Priya Lynn — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:45:46 +0000

I can’t distinguish which one is better from the information you’ve given, they are the same in my opinion. That being the case it would be best to vote for the Democrat given that that party will support marriage equality while the Republicans will oppose it and the relative power of each party is largely determined by the number of members elected.

By: Blake

Blake — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:02:41 +0000

A! Because her anti-gayness stems directly from her church rather than from some sort of nostalgic twinged ideology. I’d much rather have a less ideological religious anti-gay over an anti-gay ideologue of any affiliation. It would seem that there are more arguments available to a constituent that might would want to change her mind on this issue. Also, her position could change if she changed churches or if her church changed pastors. Whereas B is set in his ways in that he is tying his anti-gay marriage position into his ideological worldview. In order to change his mind you have to challenge his entire worldview & that’s going to be much more difficult for a constituent to reach him on this issue.

Of course, given the similarities of the positions I’d probably vet them a bit further before pulling the lever.

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 14:49:45 +0000

@Chris McCoy
Candidate B sounds more persuadable, just going from the short-form presentation of their views and not the linked article.

While Candidate A couches her opposition in terms of religion (“my church” etc), Candidate B is concerned about preserving the institution of marriage. It’s a more pragmatic/social position than a theological one. That kind of person — my own mom is one — actually is open to discussion, if we talk to them the right way.

We can take seriously their desire to protect the sanctity of marriage instead of belittling it (after all, we want into that “sanctity” ourselves!) and then show them that gay marriage is a step forward, not a threat. Someone who has made peace with civil unions but is still on the fence about full marriage is someone who is still open to a conversation. Candidate A’s “how much more do they want?” is a sign that for her the conversation is over.

By: GDad

GDad — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 14:26:20 +0000

The way your challenge was framed made me immediately try to form a mental picture of each candidate. Whatever that says about me, it says, but I was pretty spot-on in my mental images, except for candidate B’s choice of facial hair.

I’m not sure how I’d vote, and I think I’d have to read the slate of issues, but I do think I’d be more inclined to vote D, simply because of the R platform. Perhaps I’d want to investigate whether Ds and Rs ever cross the aisle in IL state politics, or if they’re pretty polarized. That would be a factor as well.