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May 07, 2008
Consider Yourself Warned, Maverick™
Drudge points out a bad sign for John McCain. In both Indiana and North Carolina, a not-insignificant percentage of Republicans turned out to cast their votes for someone other than the presumptive GOP nominee. I goofed on Ron Paul supporters earlier, but they aren't the only ones who turned up at the polls today.
In both states, nearly a quarter of Republicans voted against the man who is the nominee. I wonder why? Okay, that may not be the only reason, but it certainly doesn't help all that much. Is McCain so enamored of his Maverick™ image that he's willing to alienate segments of the GOP base? The evidence is not promising - the harshest rhetoric he's used lately was not against Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama - it was against the North Carolina GOP, which ran an ad he didn't like.
It's clear that McCain has yet to internalize a simple truth - many of us didn't want him as our nominee, and we're not all that thrilled with him on top of the ticket. My vote in November will not be for John McCain - it will be against Barack Obama. This is a 'lesser of two evils' election for me. McCain seems to think that his Maverick™ image is attractive, but he's mistaken. Our tolerance and begrudging acceptance of his candidacy should not be mistaken for enthusiasm.
McCain will get my vote, but there's no way I'm giving him my money. After all, he didn't think it was a good idea for me to keep more of what I earned, so why should I bother? And blogging on his behalf? No thanks. Don't blame me, Maverick™ - you made the bed.
Posted by slublog at May 7, 2008 12:32 AM
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Comments
I was one of those that didn't vote for McCain in the primary election yesterday. I voted for Hillary. I had the exact opposite reason for doing this than you suggest above, however. I fully intend to vote for McCain this fall, but a vote for him in the primary would have accomplished exactly zilch. Instead, I used my vote to benefit McCain by attempting to prolong Democratic in-fighting. I prefer McCain from among the three candidates and my vote reflected that, moreso IMO than a direct meaningless vote in the GOP primary would have.
Posted by: Mainiacjoe at May 7, 2008 10:35 AM
I agree with Mainiacjoe. Maybe Operation Chaos, and other such efforts, had some effect on the voting.
Posted by: FishFearMe at May 7, 2008 11:27 AM
With regards to your original thesis, here are the primary results for my county:
Hillary: 14743
Obama: 12971
McCain: 5450
Huckabee: 591
Paul: 415
Romney: 303
For the Dems, urban precincts were all Obama and rural ones all Hillary. For the GOP, 20% of voters declined to vote for McCain.
19.6% of voters chose to vote in the GOP primary, whereas in 2004 56.5% voted for Bush over Kerry. So I wasn't the only one playing the Dems' NH game.
BTW we had 40% turnout in our county for a May primary.
Posted by: MainiacJoe at May 7, 2008 12:40 PM
And BTW I have no idea what this Operation Chaos thing is.
Posted by: MainiacJoe at May 7, 2008 12:40 PM