My cure for conservatives getting ‘John McCained’ in a presidential primary is very simple and would be easy to implement. I think it would be dramatically effective.

The problem as I see it is that if we have only one liberal leaning candidate within a field of several more conservative leaning candidates plus enough liberals crossing over to the RNC to affect the primary – THEY WILL SKUNK OUR VOTE AND I THINK THEY DID LAST YEAR.

If our last primary had been ONLY, say for example, Duncan Hunter versus John McCain – I believe Hunter would have won. If it has ONLY been Rudy Giuliani versus McCain – I believe Giuliani would have won, etc.

A majority of conservatives within the RNC simply does NOT in any way guarantee that a conservative will be nominated using the current approach when there are several conservatives on the ticket and one ‘ringer’ like a John McCain.

My solution, which I believe would be similar in outcome to a run-off style election, (but effected on a single ballot rather than by multiple elections), is:

THE “YEA/NAY PRIMARY BALLOT”

It allows you to not only vote for the candidate you want the most – it ALSO allows you to vote against the person you want the LEAST. I am convinced that had such a ballot been in place last year during the primary – there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that McCain would have won.

Here’s one idea of how it might be implemented on an optical scan type primary ballot. As before, the first column is wide listing the name of each candidate.

However there would be TWO marking columns instead of just one. One column would be headed “Yea and the other column headed “Nay”. Each voter is permitted to make only one mark in each column, (more than one mark in a column would invalidate that column). Each voter is also permitted to leave either column blank if they wish.

The total vote for each candidate is simply all of their yea votes — minus all of their nay votes.

I know that I for one, along with my yea vote for Duncan Hunter, would have used my nay vote to stop McCain. I suspect that a majority of us would have done the same thing and maybe we would now be celebrating the presidential election of an actual conservative to the WH instead of crying in our beer.

We definitely need to make a change for the better and this could do it unless there’s a downside that I’ve not considered. Can anyone think of one?

(PS – I think democrats ought to do the same thing cuz many of them are so stupid they’ll vote yea and nay for the same candidate!)

You mean Obama? So what?

Perfect.

Yeah, aside from those instances, the reprehensible derelict has seldom been accused of pandering to the base.

Great news Socky, you got someone who DOES pander to his base.

You mean Obama? So what? McCain panders to the liberal left, too. They’re called ‘the media.’

It has gotten incredibly tiresome.

Hey, if you can live in Minnesota you can bear up under any tiresome activity.

Sure it isn’t because of the 4 million + supposed “conservatives” who sat on their asses and didn’t bother to vote/contribute/do anything but whine on 4 November? Wonder if I have ever mentioned this before: there is nothing conservative about electing Barack Obama.

Note to frostrt: I’m getting that “treadmill” feeling again…

Not really a counterargument there…. It’s great to see Michelle working on bringing about the same set of circumstances for next time though. What do we want to bet that whatever politician comes out of the primaries will be labeled a “RINO” here…

Sure it isn’t because of the 4 million + supposed “conservatives” who sat on their asses and didn’t bother to vote/contribute/do anything but whine on 4 November? Wonder if I have ever mentioned this before: there is nothing conservative about electing Barack Obama.

Note to frostrt: I’m getting that “treadmill” feeling again…

Bill, you are really proud of your “icehole” joke, aren’t you?

An oldie but a good one. According to you it isn’t a joke though. Maybe the time you spend on the internet would be better spent working on that…

“Oh, and all those things you mentioned about my son-in-law, Franken, etc. are external issues that I can live with just fine. “

Thanks for confirming that you are “just fine” with having Al Frankin as your senator. Guess you can stop complaining… You truly belong in Minnesota.

On January 8th, 2009 at 11:00 am, Socky said:

Yeah, aside from those instances, the reprehensible derelict has seldom been accused of pandering to the base.

Great news Socky, you got someone who DOES pander to his base.

On January 8th, 2009 at 12:26 pm, MtsEdge said:

We can thank/blame him for the next 4 years (minimum) of pain and suffering in this country for all hard-working, patriotic Americans.

Sure it isn’t because of the 4 million + supposed “conservatives” who sat on their asses and didn’t bother to vote/contribute/do anything but whine on 4 November? Wonder if I have ever mentioned this before: there is nothing conservative about electing Barack Obama.

Interesting that I’m not alone in that assessment.

JOHN MCCAIN, LEAVE AMERICA ALONE. GO AWAY. YOU HAVE DONE ENOUGH DAMAGE ALREADY.

We can thank/blame him for the next 4 years (minimum) of pain and suffering in this country for all hard-working, patriotic Americans.

JOHN MCCAIN, LEAVE AMERICA ALONE. GO AWAY. YOU HAVE DONE ENOUGH DAMAGE ALREADY.

That is the real tragedy for this country, since opening up all that drilling would create jobs, restore our economy and bring huge renewal to a lot of dying towns.

But it would make people less dependent on government, and we can’t have that.

First time ever that McCain was accused of attempting to curry favor with he party’s base.

Except for when he met with the “agents of intolerance” prior to his White House bid.

And for when he suddenly changed his rationale for opposing Bush’s tax cuts from “they were skewed to the rich” to “they didn’t include spending cuts,” and then decided to support keeping them in place.

Or when he switched from opposition to off-shore oil exploration to “drill baby drill.”

Or, when he chose a genuinely conservative running mate (whom he subsequently threw to the wolves).

Yeah, aside from those instances, the reprehensible derelict has seldom been accused of pandering to the base.