There's a lot of talk on DailyKos and a few other places around the net about the notion of putting party over individual candidates. That it's better to have a Democrat who's not perfect than a Republican. That you settle ideological disputes in the primary, but once that's done, you vote the party. I'm not sure I can do that in the 2006 Illinois Governors' race.
If you aren't familiar with the race, we have a machine Democrat with some corruption scandals in the form of Rod Blagojevich. He is running against Judy Bar Topinka, a Republican, but one with a very solid reputation for being fiscally responsibile and socially moderate.
To be fair Blagojevich has done some good things. He's set up a program to insure that children in Illinois are guaranteed health care as an example. But at the same time he's clearly corrupt, and he's done a fair number of shady things to keep the books balanced withour raising taxes (various robbing peter to pay paul kind of stuff).
I'm not going to get into the specifics of either candidate beyond what I just said, but I think this kind of election calls into question the notion of party over politican that seems prevalent here. I'd rather have a Republican in power here (with a Democratic legislature) that knows how to run a responsible government, than a corrupt Democrat.
So what are people's thoughts here? I can see the value of giving Democrats power in national elections. I can even see the value in state elections to avoid the Ken Blackwells of the world. But can you really justify voting for an obviously corrupt Democrat just to avoid a Republican?