I confess, I came up with the "Vote for Romney to screw up the GOP race" idea before Kos did. Or at least before Markos posted a diary about it. [I can't be sure he didn't think of it first, of course].
If you don't believe me, just ask my wife!
Anyhoo, while I am leaning toward that, I am still a bit undecided. Romney has been ticking up in the polls here lately, and I am not exactly sure why that is.
Democrats, in those same polls, seem to favor John McCcain -- so it can't be due to Democrats crossing over. Sadly, you see, McCain still has some residual good will among independants and Democrats in ths state.
Auto-workers and other union households do not all read Daily Kos!
Although, I did find it amusing when a union carpenter was quoted in the paper after a McCain rally in East Lansing saying he likes McCain because he will "close the borders," and "crack down on illegal immigration." Ha! Ha! I guess that's what they mean by "low information voter."
So how's about you all giving me suggestions? One alternative possibility is to vote "uncommitted" in the Democratic primary. But, the back story on the Michigan primary that most folks nationally don't understand, is that the parties want to use the selection of party ballots in the primary to build up their list for the fall campaign.
That's why the Michigan Democrats are desperate to get people to show up and pick a Democratic ballot. That's also why the Republicans are worried about a lot of crossover votes screwing up their list.
So, aside from registering a protest vote against the DNC and Hillary Clinton, voting "uncommitted" in the Democratic primary does serve a useful purpose. It will prevent me from getting a ton of GOP spam mail and robo calls this fall.
Another alternative is to vote for Ron Paul.
If Paul gets a good chunk of the GOP priimary vote here, it may signal to the media that a pretty large core of Republicans are dissatisfied with the war in Iraq.
Finally, I could also vote for Mike Huckabee, who is hanging around in a solid third place. If he manages to move into a tie or beat McvCain or Romney in Michigan, it could also throw the GOP race into some chaos.
I do have to say, however, that my motivations for possibly voting for Mitt Romney are slightly different than Markos'.
I happen to believe McCain would be the Democrats most formidable opponent in the fall, and I want to derail his momentum from New Hampshire. I disagree with Markos that a drawn out GOP primary is necessarily bad for the GOP. On the contrary. Much like the longer Democratic priomary in 2004 ben3efitted our eventual nominee by keeping the spotlight on our candidates and our anti-Bush attacks, I thknk it would probably allow the GOP candidates to stay in the new longer.
The only difference, of course, is that the Obama.Hillary fight is also sucking up a lot of media oxygen. But, that nly makes a highly contested GOP primary even more of an imperative for them to stay relevant.
So....
UPDATE: See that "Recommendations" button over there on the right? Yeah. That's the one. If you vote in my poll, the least you can do is recommend this diary too. Thanks a bunch!