[cynwoody]

200K more Arizonans voted for the R governor than for her, that pretty much tells the tale.

Republicans vote on principle, for purity. Democrats vote to win. That's the tale!

Which is better becomes clear when policies don't change, when a great President can't get anything done, and maybe can't get re-elected. But the jerks get to feel good about themselves because they voted "right".

Remember:

• What goes on in the voting booth is secret
• Principle is of no importance
• Purity is of no importance
• The time to filter out RINOs is the primary. But, even in the primary, a voter must be mindful of electability in the general
• RINOs are to be preferred to Democrats (and third-party candidates) each and every time! Even if some other candidate is manifestly more qualified!
• Only the outcome matters!

Also remember, control of the legislative body in question is of paramount importance. RINOs count towards control, but elected Democrats and spoiling, losing Losertarians, etc., do not!

[Phil DiBasquette]

Not sure if serious, but there should be no higher principle than
keeping (D) generates out of office as blue dogs that vote red are rarer than hens teeth. Their worst damage isn’t always the freak flag flying candidate you see but the institutionalized rot in the form of judges and election officials

[no-s]

...control of the legislative body in question is of paramount importance. RINOs count towards control, but elected Democrats and spoiling, losing Losertarians, etc., do not!

That's why I'm not really sure I can believe the way the vote swung. I do know a lot of people who voted Democrat and don't mind saying so. But I don't know anyone who says they split their ticket. Of course here on FR there were plenty of AZ folks who apparently could care less about the 11th commandment after the primary. Perhaps we should ask them if they split the ticket or couldn't bring themselves to support a Republican in the most important ticket on the ballot.

Or perhaps there were a bunch of Dems who split the ballot? This is why I'm confused about the election results. I'm still not above smelling fraud in this election, because we know Maricopa and Pima catered to vote harvesting in the past and officials there resisted changing the rules even after it was on freaking video (people handing in 24,000 mail-in ballots at time? how believable is that?). It was only when the legislature forced it did it change.

We still have no proof that holding ballots back or substituting ballots to swing the election doesn't happen. It's totally infeasible to ever properly secure the mail-in systems in an un-hackable way.