Voting for tax hikes has never been “pragmatic”. And saying “(I) (don’t) want to raise taxes, but (my) opponents who aren’t even considering it are “pandering“” is a statement that wants to make me punch something.
http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/article_81210ea8-e5ef-11de-90dc-001cc4c002e0.html
Anywhoo.
I heard there are 1800 absentee and provisional ballots.
And also that you can’t ask for a recount till like a month from now.
Dillard needs to do the right thing and quit. I’ll email him and ask him to.
With the talk of redistricting the other day I was thinking “eh maybe I should vote for him if he wins”.
If he steals it though that’s another story. That’s not cool.
So you would refuse to vote for a John McCain-type Republican (in *Illinois*) and let a liberal Democrat remain as governor, spend the state further into bankruptcy and sign a redistricting bill that would make it impossible for the GOP to win more than 1/3 of seats in either house of the state legislature or more than 1/4 of seats to Congress?
I want Brady to win, but if Dillard actually got more votes I’m not going to give the car keys to the Democrats (although I would move to institute run-offs in primaries in which no one got 50%+1, or 40%+1 if that’s more palatable; heck, they should do it even if this time the conservative won by a plurality). I also think that it’s unreasonable to tell a candidate that worked for months towards an election that would be the fulfillment of decades in public service to concede a race in which he’s behind by less than 500 votes without at least calling for a recanvassing to make sure that there wasn’t a mathematical error that mistakenly put him behind (remember when Gov. Riley first won in AL that he initially appeared to have lost because there was a transcription error in the vote total out of Baldwin County?).
Impy, in political terms “pragmatic” means a “willingness to compromise in order to get legislation passed.” In other words, “You vote for my pro-tax bill, I’ll vote for your anti-abortion bill, even though you are against taxes, and I am for abortion.” Quite obviously, the more principled the legislator is, the less willing he is to compromise.
Making laws is ugly. Bills have to be written, approved by the party leaders, gotten out of committees, then passed on the floor, then started all over again on the other side of the capitol.
The more pragmatic you are, the more effective you are, but the less principled. This is especially true for Republicans in our state that is controlled by Dems. Republicans can either sit on their hands or learn to compromise and negotiate.
Groups like the United Republican Fund don’t take all the trade-dealing into consideration when they produce their grades. Years ago, all the special interest groups were like the URF. But nowadays most cut the legislators some slack and don’t score every single vote. They give the congresscritters some room to maneuver, and announce when a vote comes up they will score.
Having said all that, I STILL prefer the principled candidate over the pragmatic! I want to know when I vote for someone he will represent those values he said he would, not trade them away.
Dillard has spent YEARS being pragmatic, and now he is paying for it! His conservativism is in doubt to far right voters.