This is a basic question. Would you consider voting for the Republican nominee for president under any conceivable circumstances?
This is a more complicated question. How far back in time do you need to go to find an election in which, if you were alive at the time, you would have voted for the Republican nominee?
Finally, would you consider wasting your vote on a protest candidate or simply staying home and not casting your vote at all?
The reason that I ask these questions is because we tend to focus a lot on the personalities of candidates, and somewhat less so on their proposed policies, but most of us are going to vote for one party or the other regardless of these kinds of details. Yet, I think in the past, our votes were more up for grabs.
The last time a Republican might have gotten my vote was 1952. In 1912, I would have voted for Roosevelt. In 1916, I might have have refused to participate. I don’t know what the hell I would have done if faced with a choice between McKinley and Bryan. I probably would have put my head in the wood-burning stove.
