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Ideological Purity or Electability?

Which one?

  • Ideological Purity

    Votes: 4 16.7%

  • Electability

    Votes: 14 58.3%

  • Other/Don't know

    Votes: 6 25.0%
  • Total voters
    24
I depends. In general are whole electoral process needs to be restructured to give third party candidates a chance. The debate process needs to allow third party members also, because of the problem with the ideological issue. I voted Other.
 
Zyphlin said:
Ultimately the threshold is for each individual person. All I can really speak about is for myself. I don't expect ideological purity, but I at least expect solid ideological identity on the majority of things most important to me if you want to get my vote.
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I guess that's what's called partisanship. And again, I think it would impossible to have a republic form of government without more than on political view and philosophy and party.

Party purity might help this country. Both the Dems and Repubs...are have gone totally bat****, in my humble opinion. Political philosophies have become as wildly divided in people much in the same way as a given religion. In other words....if you get down to the nuts and bolts of individual beliefs...everybody has their own version of what they think their party...or philosophy really is or means.

Thanks...
 
Boy, you didn't give an engineer type a choice in your poll. I generally vote for the best problem solver. Electability comes after that, but I did vote electability.
 
Anagram said:
In the past few elections, Republican primary voters have nominated many candidates who appeared to be less electable than other possible choices. High profile examples of this are Christine O'Donnell over Mike Castle in Delaware, Ken Buck over Jane Norton in Colorado, Joe Miller over Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, Sharon Angle over Danny Tarkanian in Nevada, Richard Mourdock over Dick Lugar in Indiana, and Todd Akin over Sarah Steelman in Missouri. The end result of this was five senate seats that could very well have gone to Republicans ending up in Democrat hands, with only Alaska staying Republican after Murkowski's write-in bid. Democrats have had big problems with this in the past too, but not as recently.

For the next set of races its already looking like this could come into play again. Steve King, who is heavily considering running for senate, is being dissuaded by the Republican establishment due to his perceived unelectability. Although, if he does run, he is the favorite to win the nomination. Paul Broun in Georgia who announced he was running for Senate is also perceived as a less than electable candidate, who if nominated, could turn red Georgia into a possible Democrat pickup opportunity.



Steve King: ‘Nobody can bully me out of running for Senate’

Dems start out ahead in Iowa Senate election - Public Policy Polling

My question is then if you were deciding between two candidates which trait would you value more? Electability or ideological purity? Would you choose the candidate whose ideals were closest to your own, even if that candidate would have little chance of getting elected? Or would you go with the one who does not share all of your viewpoints, although they are closer than the main competitor, and has a much better chance of being elected? In general, which do you find more important in a candidate?
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I vote based on networks, which generally means straight ticket Democrat. My perception is that society is a ongoing train wreck and that the government is the guy at the controls who just might be able to soften the impact a bit. In that context, there's not much either a single individual or a platform can do to save it. Generally speaking, I won't vote for an individual Republican regardless of merit because the "Republican" political network exerts mostly harmful influence on anything it touches or gets involved with.
 
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Anagram said:
In the past few elections, Republican primary voters have nominated many candidates who appeared to be less electable than other possible choices. High profile examples of this are Christine O'Donnell over Mike Castle in Delaware, Ken Buck over Jane Norton in Colorado, Joe Miller over Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, Sharon Angle over Danny Tarkanian in Nevada, Richard Mourdock over Dick Lugar in Indiana, and Todd Akin over Sarah Steelman in Missouri. The end result of this was five senate seats that could very well have gone to Republicans ending up in Democrat hands, with only Alaska staying Republican after Murkowski's write-in bid. Democrats have had big problems with this in the past too, but not as recently.

For the next set of races its already looking like this could come into play again. Steve King, who is heavily considering running for senate, is being dissuaded by the Republican establishment due to his perceived unelectability. Although, if he does run, he is the favorite to win the nomination. Paul Broun in Georgia who announced he was running for Senate is also perceived as a less than electable candidate, who if nominated, could turn red Georgia into a possible Democrat pickup opportunity.

Steve King: ‘Nobody can bully me out of running for Senate’

Dems start out ahead in Iowa Senate election - Public Policy Polling

My question is then if you were deciding between two candidates which trait would you value more? Electability or ideological purity? Would you choose the candidate whose ideals were closest to your own, even if that candidate would have little chance of getting elected? Or would you go with the one who does not share all of your viewpoints, although they are closer than the main competitor, and has a much better chance of being elected? In general, which do you find more important in a candidate?
Click to expand...

I suppose that if you are a party-tard then your core beliefs are irreverent. Because all that matters is your party's victory regardless of what views you claim to hav. I don't think anyone expect candidates to share a 100% of their views. They do however expect that candidate to support a good portion of their core views and to actually mean what they say, not pull a John Kerry or Mitt Romney because they decided they wanted to run for president.
 
Ideological purity is pointless if they don't get elected. Just sayin'.
 
Electability. Run on your principals but compromise so that you can get a majority of people to support you. The only people you will piss off is the extremes of either ideology, but they will vote for their party regardless.
 
As several posters have said, electability trumps ideological purity. Purity implies rigidity and don't think that is a productive trait in efficiently and practically running the government. To remain pure, one would have to reject any and all divergences from ideology and if every other elected official were of the same "pure" standard to their constituents, gridlock is not a strong enough term to describe the mire government would be lodged in.

The best government comes from a meeting of the minds rather than uncompromising allegiance to dogma.

Also, one voter's purity test is another voter's deal killer.

EDIT: One last thought. If I want to influence the government with my vote, my candidate has to has to appeal to more than a few like minds.
 
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From the perspective of the GOP, I'd say they should go with Electability. Although in some cases I'd guess that Ideological Purity is the same thing as Electability...



Personally though, I try to vote for someone I agree with policy-wise, and quite frankly the last 2 presidential candidates from the GOP just didn't cut it. Neither did the Democrat candidates though. Voted for the Libertarian candidate last election because the main party candidates just turned my stomach...


Senatorial, Congressional, state and local elections...it varies more...
 
Ideological purity.

If a candidate doesn't agree with most of a party's policy, (s)he shouldn't be a member of that party. If a candidate has libertarian social and economic views, they should be a Libertarian, not a Republican or Democrat.

The "electability" factor is the reason our political system is perpetually trapped in this rotten 2-party format. What's the point of being a libertarian or socialist if you must compromise your views to get support from the Republicans or Democratic establishment?
 
Anagram said:
In the past few elections, Republican primary voters have nominated many candidates who appeared to be less electable than other possible choices. High profile examples of this are Christine O'Donnell over Mike Castle in Delaware, Ken Buck over Jane Norton in Colorado, Joe Miller over Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, Sharon Angle over Danny Tarkanian in Nevada, Richard Mourdock over Dick Lugar in Indiana, and Todd Akin over Sarah Steelman in Missouri. The end result of this was five senate seats that could very well have gone to Republicans ending up in Democrat hands, with only Alaska staying Republican after Murkowski's write-in bid. Democrats have had big problems with this in the past too, but not as recently.

For the next set of races its already looking like this could come into play again. Steve King, who is heavily considering running for senate, is being dissuaded by the Republican establishment due to his perceived unelectability. Although, if he does run, he is the favorite to win the nomination. Paul Broun in Georgia who announced he was running for Senate is also perceived as a less than electable candidate, who if nominated, could turn red Georgia into a possible Democrat pickup opportunity.

Steve King: ‘Nobody can bully me out of running for Senate’

Dems start out ahead in Iowa Senate election - Public Policy Polling

My question is then if you were deciding between two candidates which trait would you value more? Electability or ideological purity? Would you choose the candidate whose ideals were closest to your own, even if that candidate would have little chance of getting elected? Or would you go with the one who does not share all of your viewpoints, although they are closer than the main competitor, and has a much better chance of being elected? In general, which do you find more important in a candidate?
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On the ideology side, I have been there and done that with Barry Goldwater. No one was going to talk me out of campaigning and voting for him. The argument of him being non-electable surfaced way back then in 64. Mainly Scranton and Romney telling us that about Barry. Then again it is very easy for me sitting in Georgia telling Missourians that they were very dumb in nominating Akin or those Hoosiers with Mourdock. It was their choice and all the folks mentioned won their primaries and were chosen by the Republican electorate. I am not a Republican, so it is and was their choice, if they pick candidates way out on the fringes, it is on them.

I think Broun could win here in Georgia; it would take an ideal candidate for the Dems to pull it off. The candidate would have to be a fairly conservative Democrat and probably from the southern portion of the state. Not an Atlanta Liberal. But yet again, if it is an ugly drawn out Republican primary for the Senate seat, that would also help the Dems.

I haven’t answered your question have I. I guess if I was an Georgia Republican I would want to keep the seat and nominate the best candidate that could win. But I am saying this as an old man, as a youngster, it was ideology that won in my support of Barry Goldwater.
 
Anagram said:
In the past few elections, Republican primary voters have nominated many candidates who appeared to be less electable than other possible choices. High profile examples of this are Christine O'Donnell over Mike Castle in Delaware, Ken Buck over Jane Norton in Colorado, Joe Miller over Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, Sharon Angle over Danny Tarkanian in Nevada, Richard Mourdock over Dick Lugar in Indiana, and Todd Akin over Sarah Steelman in Missouri. The end result of this was five senate seats that could very well have gone to Republicans ending up in Democrat hands, with only Alaska staying Republican after Murkowski's write-in bid. Democrats have had big problems with this in the past too, but not as recently.

For the next set of races its already looking like this could come into play again. Steve King, who is heavily considering running for senate, is being dissuaded by the Republican establishment due to his perceived unelectability. Although, if he does run, he is the favorite to win the nomination. Paul Broun in Georgia who announced he was running for Senate is also perceived as a less than electable candidate, who if nominated, could turn red Georgia into a possible Democrat pickup opportunity.

Steve King: ‘Nobody can bully me out of running for Senate’

Dems start out ahead in Iowa Senate election - Public Policy Polling

My question is then if you were deciding between two candidates which trait would you value more? Electability or ideological purity? Would you choose the candidate whose ideals were closest to your own, even if that candidate would have little chance of getting elected? Or would you go with the one who does not share all of your viewpoints, although they are closer than the main competitor, and has a much better chance of being elected? In general, which do you find more important in a candidate?
Click to expand...

Neither. Pragmatic problem solving, regardless of popularity or purity.
 
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