Delaware's Race

The Delaware primary race is interesting to me because it's potentially a tough call. Should a conservative vote for a RINO likely to win, or a genuine conservative likely to lose? All the while keeping in mind that in this case control of the Senate is in play, however remote that possibility be.

This particular RINO candidate is pro-abortion rights, which cooks his goose. But what if he was pro-life, or mostly so in the John McCain sort of way?

I think the old William F. Buckley standard was to vote for the right-most candidate with a viable chance of winning. If O'Donnell has no chance of winning, and is an Alan Keyes sort of candidate, then using the WFB theorem you'd go with the RINO.

On the other hand, by that standard Goldwater wouldn't have been nominated in '64 and without Goldwater's ascension in the party there would've been no Reagan.

Semper helpful, here is an algebraic formula that produces the correct vote:

(Square root of a) * b + c - d

where...

a = Percent Chance of Republicans taking over Senate
b = Percent Chance of Republicans repealing health care bill
c = Percent chance of O'Donnell winning the general
d = Amount of harm said RINO will do.

If result is between x and y, then vote O'Donnell, x & y to be determined.

(Just a joke, the formula means nothing.)

Personally, I'm not a fan of officeholders like Mr. RINO who whine about outside money impacting their local race because it's a way of tacitly saying that money, not message, matters in politics. In the end it's voters who vote, not contributors.

UPDATE: I didn't realize O'Donnell was such a flake--Just read Rich Lowrey's piece on her.