Has everything that a good ballot should have, so I don't really mind Lee Smith and Fred McGriff.

Have we seen a single vote for Bernie Williams yet?

Has everything that a good ballot should have, so I don't really mind Lee Smith and Fred McGriff.

My ballot is, I think, Bagwell, Larkin, Raines and Trammell. I can't live with Smith in the Hall. Edgar is OK, but I'd leave him out.

I would never vote for Smith, but because of the 'role' of closers and the fact that it's a mistake to include them, makes it easier for me to accept Smith. If you are going to include closers as a standalone position, then Lee Smith, a guy probably in the top 10 of all time at that position, is as good of a candidate as anyone.

What I can barely live with is Rice in and even worse, if Morris goes in. That would be like Putting Todd Jones in the hof

I'm not keeping a tally, but it seems like there is a big Trammel surge. My imagination?

[5] Feels like big surges for Larkin and especially for Raines as well.

Calm down, people. What is this--the Surge of the Month Club?

I'm not clicking any link that has both Santorum and surge in it.....
I've already fell for the googled Santorum once in my life and that was enough for me.

I'm not keeping a tally, but it seems like there is a big Trammel surge. My imagination?

#5 - I would like to think that Trammell would get a big boost this year since many on this site have already pointed out that he and Larkin had very similar careers and Larkin will most likely go in this year...but I am tempering that enthusiasm with the knowledge that only a small percentage of BBWAA voters let the public in on who they actually voted for, and the ones who let us see into their thought processes generally do a decent job of selecting candidates (i.e., they are not afraid to 'fess up). Unfortunately, the vast majority of BBWAA voters won't let us see who they are voting for, and a lot of that is to save them from public ridicule. They're the ones that vote for Jack Morris but not Alan Trammell, 'cause, well, Jack Morris was a winner, you see, and Trammell's lifetime batting average was only .285...

(sigh)I wish it were otherwise but I seriously doubt Trammell gains much traction this year. The writers aren't that intelligent...

Seems like repoz is the only one who keeps a running tally of hall votes, but i havnt seen an update in a few days. What is it at repoz?

Seems like repoz is the only one who keeps a running tally of hall votes, but i havnt seen an update in a few days. What is it at repoz?

Jim is shutting down the site tonight, I believe...so I'll post the live gizmo sometime tomorrow.

After 46 Full Ballots (I just got a bunch of votes in that puts it well over 50 and I'll include them tomorrow)

93.5 - Larkin
60.9 - J. Morris
54.3 - Bagwell
52.2 - T. Raines
41.3 - Trammell
37.0 - E. Martinez
37.0 - Lee Smith
26.1 - L. Walker
21.7 - McGriff
21.7 - McGwire
13.0 - D. Murphy
13.0 - R. Palmiero
8.7 - Mattingly
4.3 - J. Gonzalez
2.2 - V. Castilla
2.2 - P. Rose (write-in)

How close last year were the actual results to the collected ballots?

Well, I didn't think we'd see a ballot with Vinny Castilla on it before ever seeing one with Bernie Williams.

How close last year were the actual results to the collected ballots?

Last year, repoz collected 138 ballots in all, here's his results vs actual results (repoz first, actual numbers second):

ALomar: 93.4 vs 90.0
Blyleven: 79.7 vs 79.7 (WOW!)
Larkin: 66.6 vs. 62.1
Morris: 49.2 vs. 53.5
L.Smith: 39.1 vs 45.3
Bagwell: 40.6 vs. 41.7
Raines 47.1 vs 37.5
Edgar 31.9 vs 32.9
Trammell 26.8 vs 24.3
L.Walker 13.8 vs 20.3
McGwire 19.6 vs 19.8
Parker 5.1 vs 15.3
McGriff 16.6 vs 17.9
Mattingly 5.8 vs 13.6
D.Murphy 8.7 vs 12.6
Baines 4.3 vs 4.8
Palmeiro 12.3 vs 11.0
K.Brown 2.9 vs 2.1

Off the guys on this year's ballot, here's the gap, staring with the guy the repoz tally was highest on to the guy it was lowest on:

Raines: +9.6%
Larkin: +4.5%
Trammell: +2.5%
Palmeiro: +1.3%
McGwire: -0.2%
Baines: -0.5%
Edgar: -1.0%
Bagwell: -1.1%
McGriff: -1.3%
D.Murphy: -3.9%
Morris: -4.3%
Smith: -6.2%
L.Walker: -6.5%
Mattingly: -7.8%

The tally is always high on Raines, and always weirdly low in Mattingly (not only is he low, but it's weird because his overall vote total is so low. Off by 8% when a guy is around 70% is one thing, but when he's at 15%). Larry Walker was darn low in his first year too.

That said, that's comparing the full tally of 138 guys to the BBWAA vote. The current tally will go up and down some for various guys over the next week and a half.

I'll say it again - if you have Larkin, Bagwell, Raines, and Trammell, I'm cool with whatever else you do on your ballot.

Questions for Election Day:
1) Juan Gonzalez made the 5% by a hair last year - will he survive another year? (No.)
2) Who gets closer to 75% this year: Morris or Bagwell? (Bagwell.)
3) Among Walker, McGriff, McGwire, and Palmeiro, does anybody make notable progress? (No.)
4) Could Don Mattingly drop dangerously close to 5%? (Probably not...10%?)
5) Bernie Williams - does he get 3%, much less 5%? (No)
6) Has Lee Smith totally stalled out at about 45%? (Yes)

#2 -- I think you're wrong. Bagwell will get a bigger bump but not bigger enough to overcome Morris's lead.
#3 -- Define "notable". Walker will get a nice bump. Note in the Repoz total, Walker is running double what he did last year and Repoz missed on him pretty badly. But if you mean "will he jump to 40%?" No I seriously doubt that. He's got a shot at 30% though.

It's a slow year -- vote totals will be down but not enough that there won't be substantial bumps among most of the backlog. Trammell will also see a nice bump I think (again it looks that way in the early going) as he rides Larkin's coattails a bit.

The tally is always high on Raines, and always weirdly low in Mattingly (not only is he low, but it's weird because his overall vote total is so low. Off by 8% when a guy is around 70% is one thing, but when he's at 15%). Larry Walker was darn low in his first year too.

Repoz' count is going to suffer from some selection bias. Since his count is going to be based on actively working writers I think he is more likely going to have a younger, more sabermetrically inclined voter pool to draw from. Looking at that +/- list I would say it generally skews toward "traditional" and "sabermetric" candidates for the substantial deviations. Larry Walker looks like a pretty big point against that though, I would expect him to be a more "sabermetric" than "traditional" candidate.

(and I don't mean that as a criticism of Repoz, thanks for doing this it's interesting. This is just meant as an observation)

Juan Gonzalez made the 5% by a hair last year - will he survive another year? (No.)

This is the only question I disagree with you on. I think the generally weak ballot keeps him alive for another year. Next year buries him though.

With Mattingly it's almost certainly about the demographics of the BBWAA. There are innumerable New York area BBWAA members who aren't continuing to publish. They're excluded from the Repoz tally, and they vote for Mattingly in disproportionate numbers.

Last year was the first year in a while, iirc, that Morris underperformed in the Repoz tally. Typically he'd come in above his eventual actual vote. My theory was that the divergences between the Repoz tally and the real vote have more to do with what makes a "story" - voting for Jack Morris is an article in the bag - bash statheads, mention steroids, wins wins wins, done - while voting for someone like Smith or Murphy is a lot harder to sell as the basis for an article. Obviously this applies mutatis mutandis to the saber candidates like Raines and Blyleven. It may be that the number of statistically informed voters has risen, and risen mostly among currently-publishing writers, and so now we'll see an actual tendency toward saber-favorites overperforming in Repoz' tally. But up until last year, that wasn't really the pattern.

The big divergence with Walker's numbers is weird. Walker's a guy who has eye-popping raw numbers, and a guy whose advanced stats paint him as a Hall of Famer. The people who won't support Walker are those who recognize the need to adjust his raw numbers significantly, but don't actually look into the hard work of doing so systematically, plus small hall voters who don't like voting for all-around stars like Walker. My guess is that Walker's vote was helped by truly clueless, often non-publishing writers who looked up his raw stats and voted for him. But I dunno. Could just be a fluke.

Looking at the results from last year (and I think this was even more extreme in previous years):

Key actuals higher than Repoz:

Morris 53.5 to 49.2
L. Smith 45.3 to 39.1
L. Walker 20.3 to 13.8
Parker 15.3 to 5.1
Mattingly 13.6 to 5.8
Dale Murphy 12.6 to 8.7

Key actuals lower than Repoz:

Larkin 62.1 to 66.6
Raines 37.5 to 47.1
Trammell 24.3 to 26.8

Now, I think it was 138 "reported" ballots that Repoz collected last year, as opposed to 581 total ballots cast? That's a pretty small % of the overall total. Getting back to what I said in my previous post (#9), I think the vast majority of voters don't want us to see who they're voting for and based on the numbers above, I can see why, if the unpublished ballots are for Morris, L.Smith, Mattingly(?), etc. but against Larkin, Raines, Trammell. If I was voting for Lee Smith and Don Mattingly but not for Larkin or Trammell, I wouldn't want to have to explain my ballot to anyone, either.

Actually, does anyone have a tally on previous years to see if a pattern is emerging? Are Repoz' percentages getting closer year-by-year to the actuals (I would think they would as a larger % of voters disclose their ballots) and, where the differences occur, I would guess non-SABR type candidates go up in the actuals and SABR-favorite candidates go down. But is that happening to a lesser degree now than it was a few years ago?

If I was voting for Lee Smith and Don Mattingly but not for Larkin or Trammell, I wouldn't want to have to explain my ballot to anyone, either.

Sorry, that makes no sense. You are suggesting that voters know that Larkin and Trammell are more deserving but are voting Smith and Mattingly (and not those guys) anyway. That seems silly to me. They're voting Smith and Mattingly because they think they are deserving HoFers and I'm sure they'd be happy to tell you why.*

Now if what you mean is that they have learned from past experience that they will take a lot of "abuse" (from their perspective) from internet jerks emailing them after the vote is published, that I could believe. But I'm not sure I have any reason to believe that the pro-Raines internet crowd would be more vocal/nasty than the pro-Morris crowd.

The low reporting total is because most of the membership is no longer writing about baseball for published newspapers or other outlets. They've moved on to become editors or write about other sports or out of the sports department altogether. Many of them are probably retired. A number of the members also write for very small papers, maybe they're not even online.

Anyway, I find it hard to believe that a sports editor for a major newspaper wouldn't require his active writers with an HoF vote to fill up column inches with it. Granted scheduling the HoF voting deadline for prime NFL and college football playoff/bowl coverage period might not be the best move.

Then there's the AP. I don't know how many of these guys stick around for 10 years but in 2000, 4 AP writers were given badges; in 2001 it was another 6. That slowed down but it still seems to average 2-3 per year. Ken Sins (2000) appears to now be a freelance writer. I can't find anything on the web that is clearly the same Barry Fritz as the AP writer from 2001. Larry Lage still seems to be doing sports for AP but is listed as the Detroit sports editor.

* Anybody who voted for Bush in 2000 should have been embarrassed about it but I'll be damned if they didn't seem right proud of it at the time, were very vocal about it for months afterward, gloated about it when the Iraq war started, went on to vote for him a second time and, by gum, even 8 years later about 2/3 of them still supported him. Indeed, wonders shall never cease! I assume most of them were Garvey voters.

So, Walt... if I'm understanding you correctly you're saying that W has fathered thousands of illegitimate children?

Well, he's certainly orphaned thousands of them, which I'd consider much worse.

Last year was the first year in a while, iirc, that Morris underperformed in the Repoz tally.

In 2010, repoz had Morris at 61.1% and he finished at 52.3%

No real explanation of his choice of Smith -- does Robo have a history of being impressed by big save totals?

Awesome ... steroids and politics in the same thread!

* Anybody who voted for Bush in 2000 should have been embarrassed about it but I'll be damned if they didn't seem right proud of it at the time, [...] and, by gum, even 8 years later about 2/3 of them still supported him.

I voted for Bush twice. No regrets. He's not on the conservative version of Mount Rushmore, but like Rumsfeld said about the armed forces, "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want."

Also, Bush's second term probably saved the Second Amendment. That's not a minor thing.

Awesome ... steroids and politics in the same thread!

Isn't that actually fairly common?

Bush's second term saved the Second Amendment. That's not a minor thing.

Well, if you say so. But my question is why we should have to choose between the second and the fourth? I kinda like 'em both, and a bunch of the other ones, too.

Well, if you say so.

Like reconstructing an inning without the errors, there's a certain amount of subjectivity involved, but unless Gore or Kerry managed to nominate two right-wingers to replace Rehnquist and O'Connor, the Heller and McDonald decisions probably would have looked a lot different.

the Heller and McDonald decisions probably would have looked a lot different

To which my response probably would be a quiet yawn. The law at issue in the Heller case was in force for more than a quarter century. It didn't amount to a repeal of the Second Amendment by a long shot.

(deleted; double post)

To which my response probably would be a quiet yawn. The law at issue in the Heller case was in force for more than a quarter century. It didn't amount to a repeal of the Second Amendment by a long shot.

D.C. residents were flatly banned from possessing functional firearms, even in the home. If that wasn't a de facto repeal of the Second Amendment, I'm not sure what one would have looked like.

Also, had D.C.'s gun ban been upheld by the Supreme Court, there's no doubt left-leaning legislatures and city councils from coast to coast would have enacted D.C.-style gun laws. I know the Brady people, et al., are trying to spin Heller and McDonald as being low-impact, but they were huge wins for the pro-Second Amendment camp.

(I'd be happy to let this go back to steroids. I just wanted to note my objection to the idea that nothing good resulted from the Bush years.)

I voted for Bush twice. No regrets.

Really? I find this hard to believe, the no regrets part I mean. Let's name Bush's failures:

1. Worst president on economy since Herbert Hoover.
2. Got us into an unnecessary and counterproductive war, and for invalidated reasons that were never really credible in the first place.
3. Exerted little authority or control over overzealous subordinates who ended up breaking the law.
4. Choices for key positions and cabinet posts were historically bad (re: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Bremer, Wolfowitz)
5. Seriously damaged US influence and prestige globally.
6. Having gotten off to good start in Afghanistan, allowed himself to be distracted and situation deteriorated badly by end of administration
7. Having gotten off to good start in Iraq, allowed situation to deteriorate badly before end of administration.
8. "Axis of Evil" speech seriously undermined US security interests, which have still yet to recover.
9. By going in light in Iraq, allowed Bin Laden to escape. Operation Anaconda poorly planned.
10. Anthrax investigation completely botched.
12. Iraq reconstruction completely mishandled, costing many Americans their lives.
13. Instituted, violating both the Constitution and against the uniform advice of experts and the , torture as a means to extract information of detainees.
14. Allowed for uncompetitive multi-billion dollar contracts to be awarded to company when current VP was very recently chairman and CEO.
15. Appointed Paul Bremer to be appointed civilian chief of Iraq reconstruction. Bremer's stewardship of reconstruction was historically inept.
16. Handling of Hurricane Katrina was dismal failure. New Orleans has yet to recover.
17. Was notoriously bad public speaker/poor communicator.
18. Work ethic was not considered adequate for job.

I think, if I googled some more, I could think of additional examples. Suffice it to say that presidential historians generally place W in the James Buchanan/Warren G Harding tier of presidents. In other words, right at the bottom. It's amazing how spellbound the neocons are, that they won't recognize this or admit to the scale and scope of his failures. And his failures cover all his bases: poor policy, poor policy administration, inept personnel choices, corruption, unconstitutional acts, inability to communicate effectively, management style plagued by laziness and inefficiency...

I mean, wow.

Like reconstructing an inning without the errors, there's a certain amount of subjectivity involved, but unless Gore or Kerry managed to nominate two right-wingers to replace Rehnquist and O'Connor, the Heller and McDonald decisions probably would have looked a lot different.

Joe, you say this like it's a bad thing.

Really? I find this hard to believe, the no regrets part I mean. Let's name Bush's failures: ...

As a conservative, I have a list of complaints with the Bush administration that's as long as my arm. But that doesn't mean conservatives should have been expected to vote for Gore or Kerry — which was Walt's implication in #20 — any more than liberals should have been expected to vote for Reagan just because Jimmy Carter wasn't the best president in history.

Issues matter, even when the standard-bearer of said issues isn't necessarily an ideological and/or executive paragon.

Joe, you say this like it's a bad thing.

You don't believe people have a basic right of self-defense?

But that doesn't mean conservatives should have been expected to vote for Gore or Kerry — which was Walt's implication in #20 — any more than liberals should have been expected to vote for Reagan just because Jimmy Carter wasn't the best president in history.

Why not? If you don't vote for the best person for the job, you're putting ideology before patriotism and betraying your duty as a citizen. You become just another metronomic zombie when you vote that way.

You don't believe people have a basic right of self-defense?

Gun rights, as the the NRA view gun rights and so we now have as public policy, have never been about self-defense. They are about the freedom to sell and own as many guns as possible. Heck, even the Mexican drug cartels come to the US first to buy their predatory weapons. Thanks, NRA!

You don't believe people have a basic right of self-defense?

You can believe in that right while still believing in tight registration laws and restrictions on certain types of weapons. The problem is that too many liberals don't want to acknowledge the basic right to own any sort of self-defense weapons, while too many conservatives don't want to allow for any sort of restrictions.** The Second Amendment has been interpreted and re-interpreted over the years, but at bottom it amounts to exactly what the Supreme Court of the moment says it does.

**Such as restricting the right of convicted felons to own guns. You'd think that'd be a no-brainer, but try to tell that to the NRA.

Why not? If you don't vote for the best person for the job, you're putting ideology before patriotism and betraying your duty as a citizen. You become just another metronomic zombie when you vote that way.

The entire point of electing representatives is choosing candidates who will most closely represent one's beliefs on various positions. "Best person for the job" is just a subjective way of saying "my guy is best; your guy is an idiot."

while too many conservatives don't want to allow for any sort of restrictions.**

I can't name a single conservative to whom this applies. (Some libertarians, yes; conservatives, no.)

**Such as restricting the right of convicted felons to own guns. You'd think that'd be a no-brainer, but try to tell that to the NRA.

I'm a law-and-order kind of guy, but not all felons are the same. I'm definitely against violent felons owning firearms. But what about a DWI conviction? What about Martha Stewart? I don't believe non-violent felons should surrender their basic right to self-defense forever.

The entire point of electing representatives is choosing candidates who will most closely represent one's beliefs on various positions.

If your candidate is unqualified or inept, then he isn't going to represent your beliefs. He might mouth them from time to time but he isn't going to represent them, at least not effectively.

And besides, some things are objective. For instance, what represents a strong economy and performance in conducting a war. I think we both agree those things are very important, as important to good governance as it gets. Everyone agrees, conservative or liberal, a strong economy is characterized by high growth, low inflation and low unemployment. And running a successful war means reaching military and political objectives quickly with low cost and minimum casualties. So, if your guy, who is a conservative, cannot extract those outcomes, and it looks like the other candidate can, then why would you vote for your guy? Just because he's a conservative? That's pretty mindless.

I think of myself as a progressive but I have no problem voting for a republican if I think he can produce a strong performance in those and a few other key areas, even if I don't agree with him on everything. So why would you vote for Bush again if you knew he did a bad job after his first term and was going to do a bad job again if he got reelected?

I can't name a single conservative for whom this applies.

Just ask for the NRA membership roll. That document will be laced with conservatives. Right at the top- Dick Cheney and his shotgun.

D.C. residents were flatly banned from possessing functional firearms, even in the home.

One could strike down the "unloaded, disassembled, or bound by a trigger lock or similar device" provision while upholding the right of a local government to ban specific types of firearms. Just fer instance.

I don't believe non-violent felons should surrender their basic right to self-defense forever.

If it wasn't so easy for the felons who were accosting them to get firearms, it would be a lot easier to self-defend, no?

If your candidate is unqualified or inept, then he isn't going to represent your beliefs. He might mouth them from time to time but he isn't going to represent them, at least not effectively.

If you're talking about some random school board election where any unvetted candidate can get on the ballot, fine. If you're talking about the presidential election in a country with well-defined political parties and a long primary process, it's downright silly.

Again, the idea that conservatives should have voted for Gore or Kerry or Obama out of some sense of patriotic duty is absurd. If you want to play that game, John McCain was far more qualified than Obama, who had never served in the military, had only a lackluster career in the Illinois legislature, and had never managed people or created a job in the private sector. McCain was also Mr. Bipartisanship compared to hard-left Obama.

So why would you vote for Bush again if you knew he did a bad job after his first term and was going to do a bad job again if he got reelected?

First of all, I never said Bush did a "bad job" in this first term, and the 2004 election results tell me I had plenty of company. Second, as I've mentioned before, I vote on the basis of issues rather than trivialities. The biggest impact many presidents have is in the courts. Bush's second-term appointments of Roberts and Alito likely saved the Second Amendment, and they could very well be the deciding votes to strike down Obamacare. As a conservative, I care more about these issues than I do about having a president who's a smooth talker or who's beloved at the U.N.

Just ask for the NRA membership roll. That document will be laced with conservatives. Right at the top- Dick Cheney and his shotgun.

Dick Cheney believes violent felons should have unrestricted access to firearms? Who knew?

One could strike down the "unloaded, disassembled, or bound by a trigger lock or similar device" provision while upholding the right of a local government to ban specific types of firearms. Just fer instance.

Such as which specific types — handguns and/or long guns? (Ha ha.)

Such as which specific types

How about "handguns, automatic firearms, and high-capacity semi-automatic firearms"? None of those are really practical for home defense for most people anyway. You'll be wantin' a shotgun for that.

while too many conservatives don't want to allow for any sort of restrictions.**

I can't name a single conservative to whom this applies. (Some libertarians, yes; conservatives, no.)

**Such as restricting the right of convicted felons to own guns. You'd think that'd be a no-brainer, but try to tell that to the NRA.

I'm a law-and-order kind of guy, but not all felons are the same. I'm definitely against violent felons owning firearms. But what about a DWI conviction? What about Martha Stewart? I don't believe non-violent felons should surrender their basic right to self-defense forever.

I'd agree that the distinction between Martha Stewart and a violent felon is a valid one**, but read that article I linked to if you think that there aren't plenty of people who go a lot further than that in wanting to expand the Second Amendment into virtually unlimited territory.

And I'll let you decide whether these folks are more likely to be "conservatives" or "libertarians", but despite the nominal Platonic descriptions of those two groups, in practice they largely overlap with their almost identical rhetoric directd against the "socialist" anti-Christ in the White House.

Of course the 21st century version of "conservatism" on display in the Republican primary season has little or nothing to do with the more nuanced conservatism that found a home in that same party up until fairly recently, but that's a whole other sub-topic.

**As I'd assume you'd agree that since voting isn't a violent activity, there's little sense other than pure punitive ideology for restricting the right to vote for felons who've served their sentences, as is the practice today in many states.

18. Work ethic was not considered adequate for job.

Who was the last president that people really thought was a hard worker? Obama also gets the rap that he's not exactly grinding it out. I think that's a common criticism leveled at modern presidents almost as a default.

I voted for Bush twice. No regrets.

I voted for Gore and Kerry. And I'd like to have both those votes back because they were stupid.

The biggest impact many presidents have is in the courts.

I think we can safely say Bush's biggest historical impact will not have been on the courts.

Who was the last president that people really thought was a hard worker?

Obama gets accused of being a little detached but he isn't accused of being lazy.

Clinton ate, slept and drank the job. The first Bush was considered diligent, if not a workaholic. Reagan was accused of delegating too much.

The last guy who considered a grinder was Carter. Before that, Nixon and Johnson.

Who was the last president that people really thought was a hard worker?

Probably Nixon or Carter, which shows us the limitations of that particular metric. Of course in truth the last true slacker we probably had in the White House was Warren Harding.

Again, the idea that conservatives should have voted for Gore or Kerry or Obama out of some sense of patriotic duty is absurd. If you want to play that game, John McCain was far more qualified than Obama, who had never served in the military, had only a lackluster career in the Illinois legislature, and had never managed people or created a job in the private sector. McCain was also Mr. Bipartisanship compared to hard-left Obama.

Joe, now you sound like Sean Hannity. Obama isn't hard left. In fact, he's taken some flack from the left for betraying his constituency and not being left enough. And McCain might have been older and more experienced but that didn't necessarily make him the better candidate. For instance, he chose the worst running mate in the history of the republic, even worse than the one George Wallace chose (Curtis Lemay). And he had, and has, anger management issues, which undermined him from time to time and undercut his authority. Obama has amazing self-control.

And, as it turns out, Obama is doing an exemplary job of running the defense dept., in case you haven't noticed. He got the Afghanistan situation back on tenable footing and he has essentially dismantled Al Queda, something his predecessor wasn't able to do.

Second, it's the duty of every voter to do the best he can with his vote. Mindlessly voting on an ideological basis has gotten not only this but many other nations in deep, deep trouble (re: Weimar republic and aftermath). So perhaps you should reconsider your position and vote less ideologically (which is stupid anyway. No ideology has ever been devised that suits every purpose and situation. If there had, it would have been discovered by now) and more utilitarianally.

And really, can you seriously defend the position that voters should vote only ideologically, no matter how bad their candidate is? You really care more about conservatism than you do about America? Really? The Constitution isn't worth defending as much as conservatism is? Really?

Wow.

How about "handguns, automatic firearms, and high-capacity semi-automatic firearms"? None of those are really practical for home defense for most people anyway. You'll be wantin' a shotgun for that.

But no handguns = no concealed carry. No, thanks. Home defense is only part of the right to self-defense.

I'd agree that the distinction between Martha Stewart and a violent felon is a valid one**, but read that article I linked to if you think that there aren't plenty of people who go a lot further than that in wanting to expand the Second Amendment into virtually unlimited territory.

Andy, I agree with you in principle re: the article you linked, but again, there were no elected or prominent conservatives named in that article defending the felons' restoration of gun rights. It seems like a problem of bad judges and bureaucrats rather than some quiet scheme on the part of right-wingers to re-arm felons.

Joe, now you sound like Sean Hannity. Obama isn't hard left.

Come on. Obama isn't hard left? Obamacare was the biggest expansion of government in generations; he was to the left of people like Ted Kennedy on abortion; and he's ardently anti-Second Amendment. He makes JFK look like Dick Cheney.

And, as it turns out, Obama is doing an exemplary job of running the defense dept., in case you haven't noticed. He got the Afghanistan situation back on tenable footing and he has essentially dismantled Al Queda, something his predecessor wasn't able to do.

You realize Robert Gates was a holdover from the Bush administration, right?

Second, it's the duty of every voter to do the best he can with his vote. Mindlessly voting on an ideological basis has gotten not only this but many other nations in deep, deep trouble (re: Weimar republic and aftermath). So perhaps you should reconsider your position to vote less ideologically (which is stupid anyway. No ideology has ever been devised that suits every purpose and situation. If there had, it would have been discovered by now) and more utilitarionally.

Speaking from experience, calling people "mindless" and "stupid" is generally counterproductive when trying to swing them over to one's side politically.

Anyway, if the Democrats nominate a candidate for president who's for smaller government and lower taxes and is strong on matters of crime and national defense (including our borders), while the GOP runs a candidate who's for bigger government and higher taxes and is weak on crime and national defense, I'll enthusiastically vote for the Democrat. But until that day, I'll take a mediocre conservative over an ardent liberal every time, and I don't believe it's either "mindless" or "stupid" to do so.

And really, can you seriously defend the position that voters should vote only ideologically, no matter how bad their candidate is? You really care more about conservatism than you do about America? Really? The Constitution isn't worth defending as much as conservatism is? Really?

Wow.

I voted for Bush precisely for reasons of defending the Constitution, not with a disregard for the Constitution. I thought that was plain in my prior comments re: the Second Amendment.