If a Democrat voted for Reagan, should they be allowed to vote Democratic?

[LoZoccolo]

[wyldwolf]

1. silly poll

[babylonsister]

3. I think that's the point. There are people who actually believe this on DU.

Go figure.

[wyldwolf]

like who?

[babylonsister]

7. Start here and watch this poll:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4105320&mesg_id=4105646

[LoZoccolo]

9. Someone in the "voted for Reagan twice" thread said that...

...if a Democrat voted for Reagan twice then they are not really a Democrat. I do not know what that is supposed to mean. Like are they not allowed to vote for Democratic candidates after that?

[Selatius]

12. It's the same thing as saying that Zell Miller or Joe Lieberman aren't Democrats.

If their party registration papers say that they're registered as Democrats, then they are Democrats. Period. That statement that folks who voted for Reagan twice comes built into it the assumption that he or she has a lock on the definition of a "true" Democrat. I'm a left winger on economic issues, and I don't like Ronald Reagan at all and think people who did vote for him...twice...were shooting themselves in the foot, yet I never really accepted the argument that because of my political beliefs, I can judge who is and isn't a "true" Democrat. It would be trying to assert that an opinion is a fact, and that's a fallacy.

My measure of a Democrat is simply party registration papers. That is all. I accept it simply because it is an objective observation, not a subjective one.

[TwilightZone]

13. I think you might be confusing "are" with "were".

Many Reagan Democrats truly were not Democrats. Many were conservatives that were voting Democratic because of family tradition or because they hadn't self-identified politically yet. Many of them switched parties during the Reagan years. They were Democrats, but only in the party registration sense.

However, just because they were not Democrats then does not mean that they can't be Democrats now. People change.

[VarnettaTuckpocket]

14. No, it means they weren't Democrats at the time.

If they see the error of their ways in voting for the loathsome Reagan, and don't intend to vote for anymore right-wingers, then they are Democrats. A Reagan or Bush voter can call themselves a Democrat, but actions speak louder than words. Until they renounce those actions, they are Republicans who choose, for whatever reason, to call themselves Democrats.

[LoZoccolo]

19. Would they be disallowed from voting for other Democrats at the same time as Reagan?

Say that the 1984 ballot has other state and local candidates on it; would they be allowed to vote for the Democrats for other offices?

[Political Heretic]

2. Dubaya. Tee. Eff.

[BootinUp]

I f'd with your poll

for a yuk. :hi:

[Skidmore]

4. Are you trying to make a point, or are you being just plain ignorant?

[hedgehog]

5. Hey - I think a Republican who voted for Reagen should be allowed to vote Democratic!

[JBoy]

6. No, they should be forced, by law, to vote Republican.

:wtf:

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

11. after being stripped naked and poked with sharp sticks...

nt

[Selatius]

8. No, they should be stripped of party membership and banished to the Republican Party.

:sarcasm: :wtf:

[Renew Deal]

10. People make mistakes

And sometimes people vote on single issues. Those opinions often change.

[pampango]

15. Only the purest of the pure should be allowed to vote Democratic. n/t

[EffieBlack]

16. "Allowed?"

Since when does anyone else determine who is "allowed" to vote for whom?

[LoZoccolo]

18. We could form local groups to subject people to ritual shaming. n/t

[racaulk]

17. Someone's vote is their own, it doesn't belong to one party or another.

Even if someone had voted a straight Republican ticket for every election in their life, if they wanted to vote for a Democrat instead in the upcoming election, whose right is it to not "allow" them to do so?

Considering that voting is supposedly anonymous, for those that voted "No" in this poll, how are you going to know which Democrats voted for Reagan? And how will you know which Democratic Reagan voters later desired to vote for a Democratic ticket? And assuming you know the answers to these two questions, how would you propose stopping them?


Edited to correct a grammatical error.

[Debi]

20. Let's ask General Wesley Clark, shall we??

http://www.factcheck.org/was_wesley_clark_a_republican.html

<snip>
Voted for Nixon and Reagan

Clark says he voted for Richard Nixon during the Vietnam era, and later for Ronald Reagan as the Cold War was coming to an end. “I voted for Reagan and I voted for Nixon because they were for national security,”
<snip>