Lunch time poll: Voting Dilema

[cdave]

In my local seat the two parties who most stand a chance of winning there have:

• A rebellious incumbent MP who votes against his party (usually in the direction I'd want), but whose party I don't want in power.
• A local councillor for the party I'd like to see in, who doesn't really impress me with his literature, and website (and hasn't replied to an email from 5 days ago asking why I should vote for him).

[Poll #1553873]

Comments

[makyo.livejournal.com]

I'd be inclined to vote for the rebellious incumbent MP with a track record of independent thought and doing mostly what you'd like him to, rather than the lacklustre candidate who can't reply to email and just happens to be a member of the party you like.

[cdave]

Thanks. Nice way of putting it.

[cdave]

And to be fair to the poor chap, I didn't just ask why I should vote for him. I asked if he would have attended Wash Up, and disobeyed the whip if they hadn't withdrawn it.

[matgb]

For added bonus fairness to whoever.

I'm deputy campaign manager for my Lib Dem candidate locally. I wouldn'[t have been if the excellent sitting MP from a different party was running for reelection, I'd have voted for her and campaigned elsewhere, probably.

My candidate is swamped with emails. Utterly utterly swamped. She's forwarding what she can't answer to me. I haven't time to answer them all.

And she's fairly switched on with technology, uses email at work, etc.

Not every politician is a natural email user, and givena large chunk of the population isn't, that can be a good thing; if elected, they can get staff.

And persuading candidates tog et impressive websites, especially if they're not naturally online a lot, is hard work; I had to bully my local party into it, and stil do most of the work for it myself, they're convinced it's irrelevent and won't help them in any way.

Given I'm getting search traffic for ""Mat bowles" candidate" on my DW, I think they're wrong, but it's a generation shift.

Now; posit. Your local rebellious type, I'm guessing, is Labour, as that's who tend to need to rebel. Do you think said type can buck national vote collapse and stay in? If so, vote for him.

If not, there's a risk collapsed vote could go elsewhere. So vote for your preferred party.

I therefore don't vote in your poll, as it depends entirely on local chances.

(and I came here via discussion at Andrew's, in case you didn't guess)

[cdave]

He does actually have a nicely put together site. I just don't get the impression from it that he wants to be an MP to change the world.

But that's part of the problem. If there wasn't a page there saying drop me a line, with an email address on it, I wouldn't have bothered tracking one down, and wouldn't be disappointed now.