Thursday, September 16, 2004

Voting with the party. . .the Coulson-Blomberg race

I got an email from a buddy of mine working for the House Dems. He brought up a few good points about the Coulson-Blomberg race up in Skokie-Lincolnwood-Wilmette.

The main one that resonated the most with me (especially now that Bush had a good week) is the partisan argument. Dems got to stick together. And I've never liked the idea of blind party loyalty, but it's growing on me.

Take the California recall election. Arnold Schwarzenegger is certainly a better governor than Gray Davis. But. But. But. He will make it more likely that President Bush will get re-elected, who will certainly be a far worse president than John Kerry. Arnold campaigning with Bush in Nevada is a horrible thing for the Kerry campaign. So party affiliation does matter, not just for the particular office, but perhaps more importantly, for other offices.

Plus, what are all those angry Democratic voters to do in Skokie? They can't really vote against Bush, since Kerry has Illinois locked up. They can't vote against Alan Keyes, since Barack *really* has the race locked up. Sadly, Speaker Madigan refuses to make the 10th congressional district a swing district, so Representative Mark Kirk has the congressional race pretty well locked up. I don't think Jeff Schoenberg (the state senator from the district) is on the ballot.

So that leaves Beth Coulson. Maybe if you stick with Bush, then you deserve the wrath of anti-Bush voters. I'll bet she'd *love* to be able to run as an independent. Because that tsunami of anti-Bush votes in Skokie will be tough to withstand with a "W" button on Beth's lapel.

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