k wrote:
I'm confused, are you merely saying that the (D) is a quick indicator that you will *likely* not support the candidate, once you've eventually done the research to see what they're all about? I'm not really being snarky, because frankly I do this same in the other direction sometimes.

Given what we know about the two major parties, party affiliation does give us a broad idea of what we can expect from a candidate, without knowing anything else. It doesn't give us the whole picture though. For example, Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller are quite a bit different from Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer, and they were all Democrats at one time. Also, we're seeing a lot of infighting from candidates of both parties during the primaries, as we always do, but most of that fighting is over the details... and power struggles.

I think we agree that any voter would be doing himself a disservice to simply go down the list of Ds and Rs and make instant selections, but party affiliation usually does tell us whether a candidate is generally on the left or right, before we know the details. Some might call it "political profiling," but it's true.

k wrote:
Well, i think this argument sounds circular. You're saying that even voting for that rare candidate you find superior to all the others, despite being from a party you typically wouldn't, is dangerous due to the affiliation behind them. That's true, but my initial statement was really intending to imply disapproval of the entire notion of parties.

We probably agree about the negatives of having only two major parties. I don't like the two that dominate our landscape, but I don't think political parties, as such, are the root cause of all evil in politics. I think it would be more realistic to encourage multiple parties than to encourage an absence of parties. Unfortunately, I think we're stuck with the status quo.

As for the "superior candidate" scenario, my main question for said candidate would be, "If you agree with me on this, this, and this, then why are you affiliated with that party, which is against all of this?" I'll put it this way... I would vote for Zell Miller (D) over Rudy Giuliani (R) eleven times out of ten, regardless of who controls Congress, but you won't see such an atypical contest very often. Of course, if there's an (L) in the race, I'm much more likely to vote for the third party candidate.

RE: Against Independent Voters - Stanley Fish - Think Again - Opinion - New York Times Blog