Tim asks, "I would ask under what circumstances would you ever vote for a Republican? For instance, the editors at National Review have typically said they endorse whatever candidate is the most conservative and has a chance of winning the general election. I have heard some of my union buddies that they would vote for a golden retriver in a congressional election as long as it had a "D" behind their name. What are your thoughts toward this?" Well, as an employee of a 501(c)3, I have absolutely no opinions on who you should and shouldn't vote for. That said, when figuring out how you'd vote and when you'd cross party lines, you have to be clear on which office you're talking about. It is, for instance, foolish to vote for individuals in House elections. The US House of Representatives is the closest thing America has to the Politburo. The only thing that matters is which party you're from. The only truly important votes you'll cast are for control of the chamber and make-up of the leadership. Individual initiative is extremely constrained, and though many in Congress work hard and put enormous labor in the pursuit of the public good, it basically doesn't matter. If you're looking at the best Republican in the world against the worst Democrat, but you're a Democrat, go with your party, because the individual characteristics of the Republican will be almost meaningless. In the current Congress, members have voted with their party 90 percent of the time, and most votes where they crossed were meaningless, or they were freed to cross because their leadership had the votes they needed. On the other side of the spectrum is the presidency. Here, individual characteristics are extremely important. Indeed, a genuinely liberal Republican, or actually conservative Democrat, can levarage their affiliation to reach across the aisle and use the cover of bipartisanship to push non-traditional priorities that would be otherwise be impossible (think Nixon goes to China or Schwarzenegger goes to health care). Though most candidates for president have come up through the party superstructure and are substantially indebted to various factions, if you did, indeed, find an individual candidate of the other party who was relatively free of encumbering ties, and you liked her better, it would make sense to vote for her. So when thinking about your vote, you need to think about whether it makes sense to vote party or vote person. Person makes sense for executive positions (president, governor, mayor) or positions where the party is weak (most city councils, say). Party makes sense for positions where the individual is going to be subsumed into a party structure, like the House of Representatives, state legislatures, and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the Senate. In those bodies, the individual, no matter how terrific, is virtually meaningless. Voters are being asked to choose an individual when the real issue is which collective gets picked.
