Let me answer some feedback on the Mitt for Michigan campaign we've started here.
1.) This isn't a pro-Romney effort. We're not saying, "Romney is the best of their lot". Now granted, Romney is pretty much anything to everyone, the guy has no core principles, and he'll sell out his kids (the way he's selling out their inheritance) in a heartbeat if it meant a few more votes. His record makes that clear. So who knows what he believes? I doubt he himself knows. But that's irrelevant to this effort.
We're also not saying, "Romney is the best candidate to run against". He probably is, but any "electability" argument is fraught with danger. So we're not supporting Romney because he polls shittiest of all the Republican candidates in head-to-head matchups. Those numbers could quickly change.
Nope, we're pushing Romney because at the end of the day, Romney is spending a lot of money on ads trashing his fellow Republicans. We want more of that money spent trashing his fellow Republicans. We want an unsettled field with Republicans fragmented and fighting. We want the theocons (Huckabee), the neocons (McCain), and the corportate cons (Romney) to maintain viable top-tier candidates in the race for as long as possible, since it fuels their civil war. Heck, if we truly hit the jackpot, we might even get a brokered GOP convention.
To summarize, this isn't a vote for Romney. It's a vote for "clusterfuck".
And by sowing doubts about the validity of any theoretical Romney victory (especially a close one), we also pollute his victory. So even if Romney wins, he loses.
2.) The Democratic race is irrelevant. I hate to say it to Michigan Democrats, but your governor miscalculated and now the Democratic race means zero. The anti-Hillary Clinton camp thinks if they can keep her under 50 percent by voting "undeclared" that they'll notch some sort of victory. No one will care. You can't even say, "more than half of Democrats don't want her!" since less than half of Democrats wanted her in Iowa or New Hampshire. The reality is that less than half of Democrats want any of our candidates right now in the three-way race. I wish it wasn't the case. And if the primary had been placed on Feb. 5, it would've mattered. But it wasn't. So now the only story that will emerge from Michigan will be the Republican results, and that's the only place Democrats can materially affect the race.
To summarize, this is about letting Democrats actually materially impact this race.
3.) You can't bring a spork to a gun battle. There are some concerned that this is "dirty tricks" and that we shouldn't "stoop to their level". This is perhaps the key difference between traditional liberals and movement progressives. The former believe that politics is a high-minded debate about ideas, the latter have seen movement conservatives use every tool at their disposal to steal power and cling to it. The problem is, politics matter, and so does the winner of elections. You can't bring a spork to a gun fight, because like Florida 2000, we lose every time. And while some may feel proud their personal ethics weren't compromised and that we "took the high road" through the recount battle, how many thousands of soldiers and Iraqis wish that Democrats had fought a little harder for Gore's victory?
There is one major difference between movement progressives and conservatives -- we won't cross the line into illegal behavior. But as long as we operate within legal boundaries, all's fair in politics. The stakes matter too much to unilaterally disarm.
4.) Open primaries are stupid. Should we be meddling in their primary? To be honest, open primaries like this Michigan one are ridiculous. As far as I'm concerned, if someone isn't a Democrat, they shouldn't get to decide my party's nominee. If someone isn't a Republican, they shouldn't get to decide the Republican's nominee. So if this little campaign adds impetus for closing primaries, so much the better. But as long as the law allows crossover voting, there is nothing wrong with picking up the ballot you think best helps YOUR candidate.
In this case, the best way to help the Democrats if you are a Democrat isn't to pick up the Democratic ballot, it's picking up the Republican one and voting for chaos and war within their caucus.
Update: Are you on facebook? Join the Democrats for Mitt group.
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