[carenot]

If enough people in your area are complaining about the guy and thing he may be losing is ability to win elections or is somehow damaging the party, they may be inclined to put pressure on him to straighten up.

But if he keeps getting the votes, why should he straghten up?

He can get the Republicans and the Democrats to vote for him.

He is a Republican, so let's all vote for him. Never mind that he votes with the Dems. He has R after his name.

[PsyOp]

"He is a Republican, so let's all vote for him. Never mind that he votes with the Dems. He has R after his name."

I did say that is the one instance I could justify not voting for a particular candidate. But I would first take a look and see what his voting record was under, say, a republican majority. Some pols simply vote with the majority. But If you are in a state (assuming that we are talking state level here), where one vote in the legislature, more or less, will not make a difference, toss him out.

In Jeffords case, he rarely voted Republican even when we had the majority, so there was little loss, except for the fact that it turned the senate over to Daschle. All of these things have to be weighed of course.

The main point I have been trying to make is that we must not continue to be single issue voters, such as when a perfectly healthy conservative who may be less 100% anti-abortion, or who may take a libertarian view on drugs, runs (or vice-versa).

There are instances where voting a straight party ticket may not be best. Just let the decision be well considered, and take all the pros and cons into accout, rather than a simple knee-jerk.

We constantly accuse Dems of being the party of political correctness - for good reason. We won't beat them by exercising our own form of political correctness. If we cannot vote for people in this party because we disagree with them on one or two issues, then we might as well hang it up. We need be smarter than the Dems.