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Should you vote for your party’s candidate even if he is reprehensible?

B

Blahface

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Illinois
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I don’t like Roy Moore and I think he’ll be a terrible senator, but I don’t think the accusations against him are good reasons not to vote for him in the general election. Making sure an asshole doesn’t get elected pales in comparison to what policy they are going to enact. If you are against abortion and like theocracy, then it makes sense to vote for him.

It is the same with Scott DesJarlais who tried to pressure his mistress/patient into having an abortion and whose own wife had two abortions. Regardless of what he does in his personal life, he is still going to legislate as a pro-lifer so it is not hypocritical for pro-life voters to vote for him.

Let’s say that I got to be the sole person who got to decide whether Hillary or Trump would become President in 2016. Let’s also say that the “grab them by the pussy tape” never came out, but it did come out that Hillary finger banged children. I’d would still pick Hillary, because the damage of having Trump President is so much greater than having a child molester in office.

Am I wrong in this? Is there anyone here who voted for Hillary who would not pick Hillary under this scenario?
 
Blahface said:
I don’t like Roy Moore and I think he’ll be a terrible senator, but I don’t think the accusations against him are good reasons not to vote for him in the general election. Making sure an asshole doesn’t get elected pales in comparison to what policy they are going to enact. If you are against abortion and like theocracy, then it makes sense to vote for him.

It is the same with Scott DesJarlais who tried to pressure his mistress/patient into having an abortion and whose own wife had two abortions. Regardless of what he does in his personal life, he is still going to legislate as a pro-lifer so it is not hypocritical for pro-life voters to vote for him.

Let’s say that I got to be the sole person who got to decide whether Hillary or Trump would become President in 2016. Let’s also say that the “grab them by the pussy tape” never came out, but it did come out that Hillary finger banged children. I’d would still pick Hillary, because the damage of having Trump President is so much greater than having a child molester in office.

Am I wrong in this? Is there anyone here who voted for Hillary who would not pick Hillary under this scenario?
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So you don't think pedophilia is a good reason to not vote for a candidate?

Thanks for letting us all know that you support pedophilia.
 
Underseer said:
So you don't think pedophilia is a good reason to not vote for a candidate?

Thanks for letting us all know that you support pedophilia.
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1. fourteen year olds most certainly do not fall under the term "pedophilia"
2. that is literally the opposite of what they just said.
 
You should not be voting for people based on these kinds of judgements of their character.

Judge their character yes, but judge it by what they propose to do.

If they propose to destroy Social Security and Medicare you can judge them for that.

If you think that is great vote for them, if not don't.

But what we need more of is voters demanding politicians simply tell us what they plan to do. And voters holding them to it.

If I was stupid enough to be a Trump voter I would be pissed that no wall between the US and Mexico exists yet.

We need a lot less caring about judging private character and more concern about what these politicians are doing.
 
So, if a candidate who espouses policies you approve of is known to keep domestic slaves, then it is ok to vote for them?

BTW, advocating for your wife and/or mistress to have abortions while seeking to forbid them for women who are not so well placed politically is certainly hypocritical and demonstrates a very poor character.
 
Should you vote for your party’s candidate even if he is reprehensible?
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Why should you unconditionally support a party like it's a fucking football team? No party has my support, they have to earn my vote every time.
 
The republicans are roughly 48% of the country. And yet they control every single branch of government: both local and federal. They have near absolute power. Thank god they are a little fractured which is slowing down the implementation of their harmful policies a little. But until this power imbalance is reset a little, I'm voting 100% democrat.
 
Harry_Bosch said:
The republicans are roughly 48% of the country. And yet they control every single branch of government: both local and federal. They have near absolute power. Thank god they are a little fractured which is slowing down the implementation of their harmful policies a little. But until this power imbalance is reset a little, I'm voting 100% democrat.
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As a practical matter, entirely that ^^^

As a philosophical matter, it sounds to me like the OP is talking about single issue voters vs candidate voters. I would never vote for someone like Roy Moore because - on the whole - I find him despicable. It would not be JUST his predatory behavior, nor JUST his views on gay rights, abortion, women's rights... but all of it together.
 
People already do support their party's candidate even if the party's candidate is reprehensible. It is the "dead cat" principle, that the party could run a dead cat and still get 30% of the vote. That 30% is locked in and there seems to be no way to break it. That means 60% of the voting population will never do anything other than vote for their party's candidate. This includes both parties so singling out one party as being bad for doing this is hypocritical. The remaining 40% of the public includes 15% who almost always vote for one party, 15% who almost always vote for the other, and 10% that actually goes back and forth or votes third party.
 
Toni said:
So, if a candidate who espouses policies you approve of is known to keep domestic slaves, then it is ok to vote for them?

BTW, advocating for your wife and/or mistress to have abortions while seeking to forbid them for women who are not so well placed politically is certainly hypocritical and demonstrates a very poor character.
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It absolutely is hypocritical of the representative to do that, but it isn’t hypocritical for voters to still vote for him if he is still willing undermine abortion rights.

Furthermore, if there is a candidate like Thomas Jefferson who owned slaves, but wanted to abolish slavery while his opponent didn’t own slaves, but wanted to continue slavery, it would make sense to vote for the guy who owns slaves.


Patooka said:
Should you vote for your party’s candidate even if he is reprehensible?
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Why should you unconditionally support a party like it's a fucking football team? No party has my support, they have to earn my vote every time.
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You shouldn’t necessarily. First and foremost you should vote on issues. If your party doesn’t support your issues, but you still vote for that party because of tribalism and ignorance, that is a pretty bad idea. However, if your party supports your issues (or the opposing party is dead set against your issues) and the candidate votes in line with the party, it makes sense to vote for the party candidate even if he is a vile human being.

I am basically advocating for doing what causes less harm.
 
Blahface said:
I am basically advocating for doing what causes less harm.
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Yes, I saw this from the beginning, but the problem is that we don't normally trust vile people, even of our own so-called party, hence the offensive candidate would easily lose the election.
 
There’s a serious issue in that if your candidate is vile, your ability to trust that he will do what (unrelated thing) you want him to do is undermined.

If the man forces his mistress to have an abortion when it’s convenient for him, won’t he stop supporting the anti-abortion line if it becomes convenient to do so?

That’s why.

On the one hand, I agree with your premise, that getting the legislation done, even with ugly tools (pun intended) is worthwhile. And on the other hand, there are limits of vileness that undermine the expectation of doing good.
 
Blahface said:
I don’t like Roy Moore and I think he’ll be a terrible senator, but I don’t think the accusations against him are good reasons not to vote for him in the general election. Making sure an asshole doesn’t get elected pales in comparison to what policy they are going to enact.
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I kind of agree with most of your post, but not the thread title. I think people should vote for the best candidate all things considered. Party doesn’t necessarily have much to do with it. Even if everyone cared only about a candidate’s policy positions and not his personal qualities, it’s easy to imagine many Republicans preferring Doug Jones to Roy Moore. Moore isn’t just an ephebophile; he’s a wannabe theocrat who can’t be expected to vote for policies informed by good science rather than fundamentalist poppycock.

Moreover, there’s more to being a politician than just public policy positions. There’s temperament, integrity, and so on. Those things matter more for a President than for a Senator, so let’s go back to your consideration of Trump versus Clinton to make the point, and let’s assign Clinton all of Trump’s sexual baggage to make it interesting. Should we automatically vote against the sexual harasser, which in this hypothetical situation means voting for Trump? Probably not if we disagree with Trump’s positions on immigration, foreign trade, tax policy, etc. In terms of national importance, a dozen or two instances of sexual harassment seem relatively insignificant compared to major policy considerations. But now let’s go further and suppose that we agree with all of Trump’s major policy positions. Now Clinton is the harasser and she’s worse on policy. Can we vote for Trump now? Not if, based on temperament, we assign a 30% greater chance that Trump will get us into a nuclear conflict. Not only does that dwarf sexual harassment in importance, but it should also dwarf all the normal policy issues like taxes or whatever.

So I agree with you that sexual harassment or child molestation aren’t automatic deal-breakers. But I disagree that party-affiliation is of utmost importance, or even public policy positions generally. Everything is a consideration, and nearly anything can be trumped by something else.

Back to Roy Moore, I’d vote against him for his racism, homophobia, anti-intellectualism, and disrespect for the rule of law before I’d vote against him because he likes teenage girls. But the teenage girl thing is more likely to catch the attention of the voting public, so I don’t think it’s wrong to focus largely on that for purposes of opposing his campaign.
 
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Blahface said:
I am basically advocating for doing what causes less harm.
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As third party advocates have been pointing out for years, the lesser evil is still evil. It is sad when good is always considered an unrealistic choice.
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The problem in the US is that minority party has very little power. If you always vote third party or sit out, you remain a tool of the dominant party. You allow them to maintain power.
 
Harry_Bosch said:
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Blahface said:
I am basically advocating for doing what causes less harm.
Click to expand...

As third party advocates have been pointing out for years, the lesser evil is still evil. It is sad when good is always considered an unrealistic choice.
Click to expand...

The problem in the US is that minority party has very little power. If you always vote third party or sit out, you remain a tool of the dominant party. You allow them to maintain power.
Click to expand...
Quite enough people most likely don't consider their candidate as evil, just obviously not perfect.
 
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