Why everyone should vote for the Democratic nominee, no matter how divergent that person is from your ideology
Since 2000, I have seen or heard far too many liberals/progressives/Democrats talk about how they are going to cast a "protest" vote against the Democratic nominee for whatever office because they aren't progressive enough or they share too many views with the Republican nominee.
Let's make a historical rundown since the beginning of this century here in Florida. Nader parroted that there was no difference between Gore and Bush. Nader captured nearly 100,000 votes. Had even just 25% of those votes gone to Gore, Gore wins Florida without even a recount being needed. We aren't stuck in a quagmire in Iraq. We probably don't have mountains of national debt and there's a good chance we have Congress back already.
To get to the point, there are two Democratic nomineess for US Senate who are, shall we say, more conservative than most national Democrats: Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Bill Nelson of Florida. Casey will more than likely be 1 of the pickups we need to take back the US Senate. Is he more conservative than probably most of PA's Democrats? I'd venture to say yes. But let's look at the bigger picture here.
What is the bigger picture? Potentially winning back control of both chambers of Congress. Think about four things that that means: 1. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi become the Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House, respectively; 2. Democrats will take over chairpersonship of every committee and subcommittee; 3. Democrats control the flow of legislation; 4. Bush can say bye-bye to all the rest of his far right judicial nominees.
In conclusion, if you are hesitant to vote for your Democratic nominee for county commission, state legislature or Congress, remember the big picture: control of legislation and committees. It may be the reason that I vote for someone I'd never in a million years think of voting for normally just so that Democrats take back the Hillsborough County Commission. That's bigger than any of us and any elected official.