Single Issue Voting Better Than No Issue Voting

Tony Woodlief writes in World Magazine:

I have become something I once reviled: a single-issue voter. I used to think that a wise voter tries to discern each candidate’s intentions on major issues, and then casts his vote based on an assessment of who will do the greatest overall good—or the least evil. I thought those voters who support a candidate based on a single issue—whether he will increase school funding, say, or lower taxes—were shirking their duty to consider the full ramifications of putting someone in office. What good is electing someone who is “right” on one thing, I thought, if he gets everything else disastrously wrong? This was the reasoning I used as I congratulated myself for wisely apportioning my votes based on utilitarian calculations.

Now I suspect this sort of calculation misses something. I’ve become convinced that a nation which sanctions the extinguishing of unborn children, and further, the outright execution of near-term infants, doesn’t deserve admiration even if it gets every other policy right.

I used to include abortion as part of my voting calculus, mind you, but only a part. What if a candidate is pro-life, for example, but favors disastrous tax and trade policies that would consign people to lower living standards? Or what if he wants to use our military in pursuit of ill-defined foreign policy goals? Shouldn’t these things factor into my equation?

Those other issues certainly affect a country’s safety, prosperity, and greatness. But I’ve come to believe that a nation that tolerates destruction of innocents deserves neither safety nor prosperity nor greatness. We’ve descended into barbarism, and it poisons how we treat the elderly, the incapacitated, even ourselves. We shouldn’t be surprised, having made life a utilitarian calculation, that more and more humans become inconvenient.

Single issue voting is something that many Republicans will condemn (usually when they want you to back a Liberal Republican in the Primary or they’ve got a Pro-Abortion Republican running in the general.) but given some of the alternatives, it’s not the worst possible outcome.

Think of all the folks who are voting for Obama, unable to name a single accomplishment or policy position for their vote for the person they’re choosing to control the nuclear arsenal, the appointment of Supreme Court Justices, and the appointment of nearly 3,000 federal officials. 

We have too many ”No Issue” voters who go on things like, “He sounds like he knows what he’s talking about,” and “Now, there’s a guy I’d have over for a beer.” I wish we were all fully informed voters, but if folks can pick one key issue in voting and know exactly where candidates stand and cast their votes accordingly, they’ll be a step above people who vote without reason.

For my part, the pro-life issue is the big one, and I won’t support any candidate in the primary who is not pro-life. This doesn’t mean that I just go for the most pro-life guy. With Mr. Cox not actively campaigning, I began to send contributions to Fred Thompson. Mike Huckabee was the most pro-life candidate in the race, but Fred Thompson was pro-life enough for me too and he had major plans to fix Social Security and the border, so I supported Thompson financially. I later regretted that. (For as well as Thompson did, I would have done better to buy $115 in Lehman Brothers stock. Plus, Huckabee turned out to be the better lead.)

I also think that all issues being equal or close to it, demeanor and seriousness about the election are something I consider. I’ve had times in the primary where I’ve been more eye-to-eye with one candidate than the other. In 2004, I ended up voting for a candidate in the State House Primary who was pro-life and fairly conservative but not as conservative as another candidate in the Primary. My reason? His more conservative opponent wasn’t running a real active campaign. He’d raised little to no money and the campaign wasn’t being vigorously pursued. The only time I’ll vote for someone who isn’t running a serious campaign is if it’s a De Facto protest vote. But in terms of giving money, volunteering, or handing out an endorsement from this blog? Forget it.  If you won’t make a serious effort for yourself, don’t expect anyone else to.