I would never suggest something so politically immature and potentially illegal.

[Sub Atomic]

It would really be something if in the winter of 2011/2012, hundreds of thousands of registered Democrats switched their political status to Republican.

Just imagine if those hundreds of thousands of newly registered Republicans voted for Sarah Palin in the Presidential Primary elections and they all urged their friends to do the same.

That would really be something come time for the actual Presidential election. I wonder if a couple of hundred thousand voters could have an impact.

But I would never suggest something so immature and possible illegal. Nope. Never.

[scheming daemons]

1. Well.. it certainly is not ILLEGAL to change your voter registration

Unethical? Sure. Illegal? Nope.

[Vincardog]

11. Unethical? Why whose vote is it anyway?

[Clio the Leo]

2. But we'd all get banned from DU. :-) NT

[lindisfarne]

5. You don't have to not be a registered Republican to post here.You just have to Not sound like one.nt

[Clio the Leo]

14. lol, well THAT doesn't stop anyone! NT

[lindisfarne]

17. Yes, sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between Dem & Rep idiots.I'd like to think that

on the whole, Dems are better thinkers, but there are always outliers in any group.

[BlooInBloo]

3. (facepalm)

[rocktivity]

10. You're welcome.

rocktivity

[BlooInBloo]

13. :)

[lindisfarne]

4. Dan Savage of SavageLove went as a delegate to WA Rep convention one year - he was the only one to

show up in his precinct (or however it is that they do it). Registered Republican just for the fun of it, I guess. Can't remember the whole story but there was an article in thestranger.com

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. We used to do that all the time here in Kansas but it really hurt our party

So we stopped.

[Hello_Kitty]

7. Lemme tell ya a little story from Arizona

Back in the 80s, there was a gubernatorial election coming up. There were a few candidates on the GOP slate, one of whom was a crazy nutter that Democrats were sure would go down in flames. Some Democrats thought it would be a neat idea to support him in the primary. The formed a "Democrats for" group and raised money for the looney tunes candidate that everyone thought was a joke. To make a long story short, that candidate won the primary and went on to win the governor's race. His name was Evan Mecham. Eventually he was impeached for being a crook, but not before he refused to sign the MLK holiday into law (among other things) and caused the Super Bowl to pull out of the state.

The moral of the story is: Be careful what you wish for.

[boppers]

18. Oooh, Mecham!

Sarah Palin levels of ignorance.... on steroids.

Example: He didn't know the phrase "cotton pickin'" had racist meanings.

Mecham, Symington, we had a hell of a run there for a while.

(Yes, I'm a former 'zonie).

[Hello_Kitty]

23. Yes, and Mecham begat Symington

People forget that AZ used to be a blue state. The 80s ushered in this interminably long era of Republicans controlling the state. And they're getting crazier and crazier by the year.

[drm604]

8. As Hello_Kitty says, be careful what you wish for.

Imagine how you'd feel is she ended up being their candidate and won?

[Better Believe It]

9. And if Palin won the November election in 2012 should we blame you?

:)

[geek tragedy]

12. Bad idea. Lots of those Operation Chaos switchovers

stayed switched over.

[Jennicut]

15. This was an idea by Limpballs. Sorry if I go puke. Can we at least have integrity when they don't?

[bluestateguy]

16. That should not be the objective

First, it is not illegal. In open primaries you can vote in whatever primary you wish, for whatever reason. Nor do you need a reason to switch parties to vote in a closed primary.

The objective should be to keep the GOP candidate infighting going for as long as possible. So you would have these Democratic "raiders" voting for Palin in one state, and then in the next primary they'd vote for Romney, then for Huckabee in the next primary, and so on. That way no one ever takes control of the race and no one builds momentum. You'd ideally have no candidate having enough delegates by the time of the summer convention, such that the GOP candidate sniping would continue, while Obama was remaining above the fray, being the president, looking like a statesman while the children fight in the sandbox.

It would all have to be very well coordinated, state by state.

[jberryhill]

19. I would prefer the GOP to nominate their best candidate

And then for us to have an election in which those candidates state, defend, and debate their positions, and then we have an election.

The nitwittery of the last election deprived all of us of a healthy political debate.

I don't want to hear about passionate sermons by preachers not in the race, snow machines v. snowmobiles, the Weather Underground, moose hunting, "whitey" tapes, birth certificates, or lipstick on household pets.

I would like to hear two intelligent people who disagree, discuss the issues of relevance, such as they may be in 2012.

And I would like the best one of them to win.

That's just me.

[SoCalDem]

20. In January, 2001, I advocated the same thing here.

If you are in a republican district, you can be assured that your registration/absentee ballot wwould be handled like fine china. ... and you could also cast your primary vote for the most ridiculous republican candidate:)

[agentS]

21. The Musgrove/Musgrave effect.

I forgot what his name was, but he ran against the Rethug in MS-04 district last fall. One reason he won was because thousands of Mississippi Rethug voters switched to Dem to vote for Hillary in the Limpball's Operation Chaos plan. Well, chaos it did cause. The Rethugs couldn't switch back in time to vote in the rotten primary a month later, and they elected the wrong person. Musgrave the Dem went on to win the seat.

There was open primary shenanigans in Michigan between Romney and McCain, but it didn't have the intended snowball effect for Romney. McCain just won too many states on Super Tuesday.

So in retrospect it's not always the best idea to change affiliation to vote in a party primary.

[buzzycrumbhunger]

22. That's exactly what they did this last time around. . .

My son (in Sarasota, FL) reported to me that there was massive activity to recruit on college campuses to do that very thing--in order to get Ron Paul nominated. Of course, once they started researching the largely crackpot ideas he had, very few of them followed through. Not long after, Obama fever built to a fever pitch and it was forgotten. I never could decide if that was a pretty shrewd tactic for a minor candidate to try or just too skanky to respect, though I lean toward the latter. Maybe I'm overly idealistic in preferring to win stuff honestly.

[Dappleganger]

24. Oh ye of little faith!

The repukes are doing such an excellent job of imploding upon themselves already.

[xxqqqzme]

25. A few years ago, here in CA

I was concerned, former LA mayor, Richard Riordan, would win the rethug primary and possibly defeat Grey Davis in the general. So I change my registration so I could vote for RW religious wacko bill simon who I saw as the weaker candidate. Simon won the primary and Davis won the election and lost the recall a year later.