Conscience question: Would you vote for Walker to hold the Senate?

[Cyrano]

What if Walker was the Dem and Warnock was the Republican? What if the R's had 50 seats and the D's had 49? Would you vote for Walker in order to hold onto control of the Senate?

That question really isn't as hard as it seems. It really comes down to: "Would you vote for a total imbecile in order to save democracy?"

My guess is that I'm pretty sure I'd hold my nose and vote for Walker. How about you? Could you actually walk into a voting booth and cast a vote for someone who doesn't know the meaning of democracy, in order to save democracy,

(Fortunately, Dems would never nominate someone like Walker, so we'd never have to face that problem. But it tells us a lot about what the insanity of the Republican Party.)

[BlueGreenLady]

1. Yes, I agree with you, I would because

I am a "yellow dog Democrat".

[ColinC]

2. Yeah, I would

GOPs question is flipped: it comes down to whether they would vote for a total imbecile to destroy democracy.

[Prairie_Seagull]

16. Vote for a total imbicile that would try to destroy democracy. Hmmm (tugging ear,,,sounds like)stump

It would depend on what the horizon looked like. A decade or 2 or 3 ago I don't think so. Now all bets are off.

[patricia92243]

3. Yep! Even though I know he is an idiot.

[brush]

4. It's a flawed theoretical. We don't put forward imbeciles like that...

in the Democratic Party.

[IzzaNuDay]

6. +1

In would think Dems vetted candidates better than the GOP.

[GoCubsGo]

12. Nor would the GOP run someone as decent as Rev. Warnock.

The theory is doubly flawed. He's a real Christian, rather than the Elmer Gantry types that infest the GOP. Not to mention that he supports civil rights for all minorities, whether racial or those related to sexual orientation. He wants to give the poor a hand up, rather than punishing them for being poor. He would never make it as a Republican.

[Ms. Toad]

35. Unfortunately, we sometimes do.

I made the mistake of holding my nose and voting for one on the state legislature. One is the few votes I regret.

[brush]

40. Very seldom does that happen, especially on the national level.

The party has gone nuts like republican party has.

[yardwork]

5. I remember a campaign where the slogan was "vote for the crook."

I would have. And this is exactly why so many Republicans will go vote for Walker.

[ShazamIam]

21. The opponent was David Duke so the criminal was the best choice.

It was mere crimming, said to involve women and gambling versus being an embodiment of evil.


edit: add link, https://www.nola.com/300/article_e0a91c9b-122a-5150-8b78-81ffd66487bc.html

[chriscan64]

32. I did vote for the crook in that election.

Edwin Edwards was a skim off the top kind of crook, not a destroy democracy to stay in power crook. His strategy to stay governor was to govern and give the people what they wanted. The trains ran on time. He lasted so long we had an expression, "Same ole guvana, same ole Saints."

The original hypothetical question is moot because Democrats don't put forth candidates with only name recognition and no governing experience or ability. The closest they came to that was Matthew McConaughey considering injecting himself into the race for Texas governor, the party was not down with that. The republicans have no qualms about this behavior, hence ex-running back with 2 years of college running for Senate. I seem to remember when you had to at least have a term in the House to even consider a run for Senate.

[wryter2000]

7. It would depend

Pre Gingrich, when the Republican Party was sane, I’d vote for Warnock. If that would give the current Republican Party the majority, I’d vote for Walker.

[brush]

9. Reread what you wrote about voting for Walker.

Do you mean that the way it's written?

[wryter2000]

30. If it was the only way to save us

From the current Republican Party. We’ve seen what McConnel has done to the Supreme Court.

If we had a pre Gingrich, normal Republican Party, I’d vote for Warnock, the Republican.

[brush]

41. Didn't you say you'd vote for Walker?

And voting for either one is voting for who they are and what they stand for.

[wryter2000]

43. I think I've made myself clear

If you don't want to read what I've said, I'll leave this here.

[edhopper]

8. I can't conceive

of a Dem candidate like Walker.

[rurallib]

22. I am racking my brain and can't think of Dems anything like a Walker

I would think our system would take care of such a problem.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

10. I'm afraid I would!

[Cyrano]

15. Yeah, a choice like this would present us with a crisis of conscience

And it also defines today's Republican Party that has no conscience. They have no problem with putting up Walker, an incredibly ignorant man, and then gleefully voting for him. The fact that Warnock didn't win by 50 or 60 percent, and that we're now in a runoff, doesn't speak well for America.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

24. We can only hope Repugs abandon Walker now.

ETA: Just saw where Kemp is campaigning with Walker. UGH!

[Kaleva]

11. Would one support a Cuomo in an effort to prevent an R from replacing him?

[DFW]

13. The very first time I ever voted, I was presented with a choice like that

The major exception being that the balance of the Senate wasn't in play. It was for mayor of Philadelphia, where I was living and going to college.

The city Democratic machine nominated the sadistic, oafish and thoroughly corrupt Police commissioner, Frank Rizzo. The Republicans nominated a sacrificial lamb, Thatcher Longstreth. He was a soft-spoken Republican administrator. A bureaucrat who agreed to be their hopeless cause: a Republican running for mayor of Philly.

I voted for Longstreth anyway. I was not going to hold my nose and vote for Rizzo just because he was a Democrat. He soon switched to the Republicans, anyway, which is where he belonged in the first place.

If the race had been for Senator from Pennsylvania, and the Democrats had nominated Rizzo, I don't think I would have voted for him, regardless. He was such an odious figure, he belonged in the Republican Party anyway, and, once elected, nothing would have prevented him switching parties any more as a scruple-less Senator than as a scruple-less mayor.

[Hekate]

20. See my post #19

The OP posed such a straw man.

[Cyrano]

26. Yes. It's a "what if" question/post."

I didn't pretend it was anything else. The first two words of the first paragraph are "what if." Is there some kind of DU rule that I don't know about that you can't post a "what if" scenario?

[Genki Hikari]

47. My solution when an awful D made it onto the ticket,

Back when there were still some Dixiecrats hanging on to their party affiliation back in the day, was to write in someone. Anyone. One time I wrote in Bill the Cat. He was running for office. Just not that one, but close enough.

There was no way I could vote for an r. My grandmother would have taken a switch to me if I'd even thought about it. I got enough of that dang switch when I was 8 years old. No way I'd risk seeing it again at 18 or 22 or whatever.

[DFW]

52. You didn't see the debate

Rizzo was huffing and puffing like a prototype of Trump without the speech eloquence (!!!). The guy was a complete thug. Longstreth was a pleasant, well-spoken bureaucrat. He might as well have been the friendly neighborhood librarian, or the guy at the supermarket checkout counter you hoped to get. During the debate, Rizzo adloibbed a bit, and said that Longstreth in the past had called him an oaf, a guy who loved cruelty, and some polite epithet meaning thug (I forget which). He asked Longstreth why he said those things about him?

Now, I was watching this with my two college roomies, who were friends of mine from our last year of high school. We were anything BUT of similar backgrounds. I was a white guy who grew up in northern Virginia, DC and Spain, they were two black guys, one from Lawrence, Mass, and the other from Norfolk, Virginia. But when Longstreth reacted to Rizzo's question with, "well, if the shoe fits, Commissioner....." we didn't hear the rest because the whole block was drowned out by our unison howling and shouting.

Longstreth was probably a one-of-a-kind Republican, but anyone who can come up with THAT good a riposte on the spur of the moment gets my vote.

[LakeArenal]

14. I can't imagine voting for Walker for any reason.

[William769]

17. ...

[LakeArenal]

18. I guess voting your conscience isn't a thing anymore. Sadly.

[Hekate]

19. There is no "what if?" My party would never scrape up a brain-damaged athlete & run them...

…for political office just to show the other party what they could get away with.

And don’t anybody dare point to Fetterman, who is recovering well from a stroke. He was a mayor, and he was Lt Governor.

What the hell was Walker after his football career was over?

[mahina]

23. I know I couldn't

[Hortensis]

25. Problem: Walker could conceivably become a Democratic candidate,

voters can be fooled into electing bad choices, especially primary.

BUT the real Raphael Warnock could never be the Republican candidate.

Your scenario has to have one of the kind of RW exremist traitors they're running. Would I vote for Walker over a Kari Lake, Doug Mastriano, or Blake Masters "named" Warnock? You bet.

In a heartbeat. Walker's amoral, amenable, influenceable and buyable. And probably only moderately conservative by nature. Send him to the senate for the Democratic caucus and leadership to deal with, including offering the usual deal of reelection support in return for legislative support.

[Autumn]

27. No I would not.

[gulliver]

28. It would never happen

And no.

[Mr. Ected]

29. In my life, I've yet to encounter a Democratic candidate so bad that the R- was the better of the 2

This road to fascism is a rather new phenomena in the modern age, brought to us by Vladimir Putin and his boytoy, Donnie Trump. We may have run weakish candidates in the past but no one whose inclusion in Congress would tip the balance from a democratic state to a autocratic state, so the question is somewhat moot.

However, do I admire Liz Cheney for abandoning Republican MAGA candidates and campaigning and voting for a Dem in their place?

Now that's a big HELL YEAH.

No love for Cheney otherwise, but in the vein of the question asked, yes, if our democracy weighed in the balance I would cross party lines to protect it.

[Cyrano]

37. Luv your calling Trump, "Putin's boytoy"

Wish there was a way to make it go viral. It might just give Trump a stroke, and piss off his cult to no end.

[Mr. Ected]

42. If my words could somehow lead to the sudden demise of DJT

I don't know if I could handle the hero worship. LOL!

[Genki Hikari]

48. If you'd lived down South, back when there were still Dixiecrats

A few r types might have tempted you.

Maybe not often, but here and there, a few of them would.

Or see the example upthread of Rizzo in Philadelphia. Total monster. That would have been a write in entry from me. That's always what I did when I couldn't vote for the D, but I was allergic to voting r. Write in whoever.

Anyone wanting to know who voted for Bruce Springsteen in 1982--that was me, writing in a candidate because I couldn't vote for a racist pig D. Or an r. Similar animals, different smell.

[Iggo]

31. I would never vote for Walker. (n/t)

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

33. I would vote for a rock if it saved democracy.

Hell, if the Repugs can put Thomas on the SCOTUS to sit silently like a rock for years (until one of the women justices dared to challenge a male during his oral argument, whereupon Clarence chastised her from the bench), then putting Herschel in a senate seat on our side of the aisle makes a lot more sense than handing the country over to a party that embraces a fascist agenda. I would rather be happy than right.

After all, we could keep Walker occupied watching reruns of his greatest football plays, and tutor him on the workings of government, like Billie in "Born Yesterday." Isn't that what TFG does with his rallies? Except for the tutoring part, of course. "I know more about governing than anyone else," I imagine he'd boast.

[Ms. Toad]

34. I did that locally, once.

I figured the idiot could at least be counted on to vote with the Democrats. I was wrong and he introduced/sponsored some putrid bills. The smart, old school republican would have done less damage.

I don't know that I would repeat that on a national level.

[Dirty Socialist]

36. Nope

I vote Republican about 10 percent of the time. This would be one of those times

[Polybius]

39. That's a lot

My last time was Mayor Bloomberg.

[Demsrule86]

45. I never vote Republican...ever ever.

[Polybius]

38. Of course

No matter how much we like to think it's only them, we do it and they do it. Look at the 1994 DC mayoral race. Marion Barry had no business winning.

[Demsrule86]

44. I am sorry to say yes...I would vote for Satan in order to hold the Senate...I know I know...

bad bad person here.

[niyad]

46. Are you really that bored?

[akbacchus_BC]

53. Wow, I agree with you. nt.

[DontBelieveEastisEas]

49. "Bothersiderism"

I think, as brush first stated, that the question is flawed in the first place.

even if you reworded the concept, some of the answers could be used to claim it is a both sides issue.
That opens our side to being called hypocritical.

So, I think it is a question best left unasked. Instead, let the record speak for itself.

If forced to answer this type of question, I like brush's response.

[Dorian Gray]

50. No

I wouldn't vote for someone who held a gun to his ex.

I wouldn't vote for someone who lied with compulsion. A hypocrite about every single things he stands for. I couldn't do it; it goes against my conscience.


The GOP has eternally hurt their credibility with candidates like him and Trump. They'll have long term effects.

[akbacchus_BC]

51. As a long time DUer, why are you asking such a silly question? Are you bored?

[Norbert]

54. In the past I would vote for a good Republican over a Democrat that I had concerns

Often times I was satisfied with the vote because even if he was right of center he/she was a decent person. This began to change when we had a Republican running for county recorder who lied about several things including her credentials. I dismissed her immediately but many didn't and she won. I've seen enough of this and seen the GOP getting more radical as years go by.

I have been voting straight line blue almost ever since the orange maggot was elected commander 'and' chief (lol). I can't guarantee that I didn't vote for a sub-atandard Democrat but the alternative is voting for a possible Youngkin-lite Republican that would show their true colors shortly after being elected.

I don't know if I could ever vote for Walker or a Walker-like candidate. He is so unqualified that the only way I could is if they were running against a MTG, a Mastriano or a Kari Lake.

By the way, the Republican candidate that was elected county recorder. The combination of the county getting bluer and the fact that she just wasn't very good at her job, she became a one-term County Recorder.