You don’t sound like a dyed in the wool comservative to me if you’d vote for a dem out of sympathy. You realize that Giffords and her husband wrote that they were disappointed that “SarahPalin did not apologize for her part in the shooting”?
Yes there comments were unfortunate. But there are times in life, we cast partisan politics aside, and not pile on more misery by having her suffer an electoral loss in her own district. In the end one must balance the hurt and the gain. She’d likely to have won her seat anyway.