Mark, in his comment was perfectly correct. I suffered a mind freeze. What I had originally intended was “If The Election  were Held Today, Who would you Vote For. The change has been made below.

Political parties and their candidates love it when we vote early. They lock down the votes of solid supporters and can spend their money on getting out the votes of independents and undecideds.

The early voter is immune to attack ads on his candidate. He’s voted. Even if he decides that vote was a mistake he’s saddled with it. He can’t take it back. If, for any reason, his candidate withdraws or is run over by a truck, he doesn’t get to vote for someone else.

Frankly I see no reason to vote early. Better to wait until ‘till the last debate has echoed off into history, and the last mailer has arrived.

This is particularly important in open primary elections where Independents may vote in either the Republican of Democratic primary and where there are multiple candidates.

If the urge to vote early is too strong scratch the itch to vote here.

If The Congressional District 8 Election Were Held Today, I’d Vote For:

Nan Stockholm Walden is out before she is in, and has announced  that she won’t  run for Congress in District  2 in November. Steve Farley has also withdrawn  from the Congressional wars with the announcement he’s running for the state Senate instead.

What would an election be without caucuses, polls, and stout assertions of political preferences?

Here you go…the first Data Port political preference poll, this time featuring Republican candidates for Congress in the soon-to-pass-away  District 8.

Who do you favor? You may comment about your choice in the comments section.

Er…caucuses… have yielded victories to the leaders of the three Republican parties: The youth-oriented Libertarians, the evangelical conservatives, and the party that only wants to beat Obama.

It is a piece of traditional wisdom that if they can’t fall in love with a candidate Republicans will, in the end, simply fall in line. The primary goal of the Republican party is to defeat Obama and the view of the Republican establishment is that Romney is most likely to be able to do that. Evidence: McCain rushing off to endorse Romney.

On the other hand,  Romney’s eight vote victory margin over Santorum isn’t exactly an overwhelming vote of confidence considering the immense amounts of money spent by his “independent,” I-don’t- know-anything-about-those-guys, political pac.

John Huntsman, potentially the most appealing Republican of the bunch, didn’t contest the Iowa dog fight. He understood that with the nation’s most powerful geo-political and financial adversary being China, Iowa conservatives would be quick to reject him. Hey…who needs a former ambassador to China who speaks Mandarin. (Certainly not supporters of the neo-isolationist Ron Paul.)

The next primaries are going to be immensely amusing…noisy, rancorous, and expensive. If the three (or four) survivors continue until the convention, and the convention deadlocks, who knows…maybe Jeb Bush will step in to try for a Bush family political hat trick.

All this sound and fury signifying nothing would be really funny Reality TV if it weren’t so serious.