Why voting for Crist can be a bad thing

[DonCoquixote]

This is in response to this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9409862

But, do not take this as me mocking the author of that OP. He asked a question, and I owed him an answer.

Simply put, I think that if we allow Crist to do his "independent" gimmick, it will come back to haunt us. For those that do not know what i am talking about: we have a former GOP governor named Charlie Crist. The teabaggers threw him out of the GOP, so he is running as an "independent." On paper, this sounds nice, save that he is dividing the democratic vote, while the teabaggers are solid.

So, even if Crist were to win, why do I think that would be a bad thing in the long run?

Simple, because the GOP knows that, in a Three-way race, you do not have to win, you just have to split the other side's vote. Ross Perot taught them that, as many Perot voters would have never voted Democrat, but Clinton won. They have been angry about this ever since.

Now, however, corporations can give as much as they want to, which means that the GOP can easily throw away millions into the campaign of some "independent".

This is a win win for them:
If the candidates has a spine, they will always be reminded that they cannot get money from the party, so they need to keep their donors "happy"
If the candidate has no shot of winning, they can divide the vote, which would allow an extreme candidate to run that would never pass muster (ala Rubio).

Now, you may think "this process only works in a state like Florida." Really? Think about this, many so called "moderates" are feeling put out by the dems, despite the fact that Obama bent over backwards (so much so he lost the progressives), still take people like Evan Bayh, or Mary Landrieu. These are candidates that earn progressive hate, but, get a lot of the white vote. They can be fed money, and ensure that the white vote is split between a teabagger and a "moderate", which means that anybody to the left of the DLC gets flushed.

You think Obama is too soft on the right?, wait till all this corporate astroturf sprouts.

[JI7]

1. no