Can We Vote For Ron Paul in the Primaries and Then a Democrat in the General Election?

I have never been registered to vote under either major party. I was considering registering for Democrat to vote in the primaries for the first time for Obama. Since the Florida primaries may not even count, has that changed?, I don't see the point. I'm now actually considering registering Republican, who'd have ever thought?, to vote RP.

I thought it may be funny to register Republican to vote for a completely unelectable candidate just for S&G.

Certainly you can.

Several times I've declared myself democratic in the primaries in order to keep so-and-so off the ballot, then voted republican (or libertarian) in the actual election.

As far as supporting Obama in the election as opposed to RP as a write-in, that's really up to you -- either way I think it's a losing battle, for several reasons: 1) you said yourself that americans probably won't vote for a black (or female) candidate 2) write-ins never win unless they've got massive support 3) votes for people like you and me will be split between Obama and RP.

Then again, you wouldn't be voting for the win in that case, you'd just be refusing to vote for the other candidate(s).

I myself would probably do a write-in for Ron Paul.

Of course you can vote for Paul in the Primaries and Someone else in the General election.

Ideally, in the general election, you would not care who would win. Ideally, you would not have a preference because you liked both candidates so much. Therefore, you should vote in a way that will likely make your choice tougher in the general election. Also, you must be cognizant of the process. You should try to vote in a way that gives your vote the most weight. This is refered to as 'not wasting your vote'. If Obama has no chance of winning in your voting district (either a state or precinct depending on whether delegates are assigned based upon state or precinct results) then you should vote for someone besides Obama.

If you take these rules together, you should vote in a way that maximizes the weigt of your vote, and increases the chances that you won't care about the result of the general election.

For me, that would be a Paul/Gravel race, since Paul is the closest Republican to me and Gravel is the closest Democrat to me. In my precinct, if Gravel had a better shot than Paul, I would switch to Democrat and vote for him. As it stands, Paul is more likely to win my precinct than Gravel, so I will stay Republican and vote for Paul. I can't imagine switching to someone else in the General if Paul were to take the primary, but there is no law which forces me to disregard the change of events that may occur between the primaries and the general election.

To me, there's always been something strange about the very concept of 'strategic' voting. Personally, I think it does more damage to democracy in the long run by forcing homogenization; the lesser of two evils is still evil.

It's analogous to those who hold Ralph Nader responsible for Gore's defeat in the 2000 election: those who didn't really support Gore, but who voted for him anyway as an opposition to the republicans.

I think that forcing a two-party system in order to avoid the opposition is inherently un-democratic and does more to indict American-style democracy as a failure than having Bush in office in the first place.

I do think that you raise an interesting strategy here; that if there were to be a 'strategy' behind my vote (beyond simply voting for the best platform), that this would probably be it :) I like the idea of someone holding membership in both parties; it's a statement to the absurdity of the system.

Then again, I've been known to spoil my ballot by voting for everyone, so don't take my logic at face value ;) If I were a US citizen, I'd vote for Paul over any of the dems but Kucinich.

Of course. You should always make the best choice available to you in a given situation.

In gambling, it's the concept of expected value. Your payoff from getting RP nominated is potentially huge, but its likelihood is low. If he doesn't get nominated, the chance of him winning as a write-in is zero and not much better as a third party. At that point, evaluate the landscape. I think Obama is a smart guy with integrity. I believe what he says. Given the choice between RP and Obama, it's a line ball. Given the choice between Obama and RomHuckaGiuliani, it's no contest at all.

Good luck to you (and us all)