Catholic.com presidential poll

[Crossbones]

I, a Georgian, am fascinated that we might turn blue! But I hear you about the vitriol…yuck!

Is Georgia seriously in play? I’ve read that, but I find it very hard to believe. Are you getting a sense of why this might happen?

 

[Stylteralmaldo]

Is Georgia seriously in play? I’ve read that, but I find it very hard to believe. Are you getting a sense of why this might happen?

Republican primary results:

Trump: 501,707
Rubio: 325,979
Cruz: 305,109
Carson: 80,503
Kasich: 72,303

Democrat primary results:

Clinton: 543,008
Sanders: 214,332

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Not only am I voting for trump. I’m excited to do so.

I’m a very conservative republican. And I am convinced trump is the best option.

 

[JW55]

JW55;13894289:

I myself was never a Rubio supporter for a variety of reasons. Everyone has a right to choose who they want, but I am just curious, what about him makes you feel he was a perfect candidate?

I was hoping Cruz would prove to be an option for me. The more I learned about him the less I trusted. It seemed he could never just have a conversation. Everything was presented as a speech even if it was a one on one conversation. The "alliance with Kasich seemed very suspect.

 

[lax16]

Because she’s clearly the best choice and because I am proud of her and the things she has accomplished in her many years of service to our country. I understand that not everyone feels this way about her, but I believe most of my fellow citizens will vote for her.

She’s criminal. Doesn’t that negate her accomplishments?

 

[Holly3278]

To be honest, I think I would have to vote for Trump if it came down to a race between Trump and Clinton. The simple reason being that voting for an independent candidate is basically just throwing away your vote.

 

[Midnight_Rider]

C’mon yourself. Most foreign policy experts agree Hillary is more hawkish than Trump or Sanders or Obama. People act as though a brash personality equates to failed foreign intervention after failed foreign intervention.

If you want to vote against Trump, go ahead and do so - plenty of reasons, but if your alternative is to tell folks to vote for Hillary, your arguments will fall on deaf ears.

My response is to vote for anyone but Trump.

 

[Exiled_Child]

They both just want to make me hurl. One is corrupt, the other is crazy. Sorry. I know this wont make me any friends.

I agree entirely, and I think your position is as succinct as it is unassailable. Unfortunately for everyone on Earth.

 

[Kevin12]

Anyone planning to vote for Trump should very carefully listen to this interview from back in December:

STEPHANOPOULOS: …It shows “The New Furor Over Donald Trump,” showing you raising your hand in a pretty demonstrative gesture, and we heard from the Ibrahim Hooper, Council on American-Islamic Relations, saying are we talking internment camps, are we talking the final solution to the Muslim question? I feel like I’m back in the '30s. You’re increasingly being compared to Hitler. Does that give you any pause at all?

DONALD TRUMP: No, because what I’m doing is no different than FRD – FDR’s solution for Germans, Italians, Japanese, you know, many years ago –

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re for internment camps?

TRUMP: This is a president who was highly respected by all, he did the same thing, if you look at what he was doing, it was far worse.I mean, he was talking about the Germans because we’re at war. We are now at war. We have a president that doesn’t want to say that, but we are now at war. [He never specifically says “I am not for internment camps”]

STEPHANOPOULOS: I’ve got to press you on that, sir. You’re praising FRD there. I take it you’re praising the setting up of internment camps for Japanese during World War II.

TRUMP: No, I’m not. No, I’m not. No, I’m not. Take a look at presidential proclamations 2525, 2526 and 2527. Having to do with alien Germans, alien Italians, alien Japanese and what they did. You know, they stripped them of their naturalization proceedings. They went through a whole list of things.They couldn’t go five miles from their homes. They weren’t allowed to use radios, flashlights. I mean, you know, take a look at what FDR did many years ago, and he’s one of the most highly respected presidents by – I mean respected by most people. They named highways after him.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You want to bring back policies like that?

TRUMP: No, I don’t want to bring it back, George, at all. I don’t like doing it at all. It’s a temporary measure until our representatives,He never specifically says there will be no internment camps for Muslims—he “doesn’t WANT” to bring these policies back, but he may just have to] many of whom are grossly incompetent, until our representatives can figure out what’s going on. We just had a case where people, you know, many people were killed. We’re going to have many more cases like that. We had somebody in this country that shouldn’t be here. She came in. He came in. They were radicalized. They were looking at doing something. Miraculously yesterday they found $28,000 just put into his account. Just put into his account. He was paid a lot of money just put in – where did that money come from, George? I’ll bet you will be surprised to find out where. There are many, many other people like him in this country right now.

Months later, Trump has said there won’t be internment camps for Muslims, but that was months later. People harp on the David Duke thing, but this is much more terrifying.

I get that I church basically tells us we have to be single issue voters, and that even if the Republican candidate personally burned our house down and beat our dog to death, we would have no choice to vote for him because abortion is the only issue that matters. But at the very least you could write in a candidate or vote for a third party rather than support someone who has shown himself very willing to consider, you know, being the American Hitler.

And I’m repulsed enough by Trump supporters in general—really, they’re worse the the man himself—but Catholic Trump supporters, I don’t know how you sleep at night. Your ancestors were all treated the way Trump treats Muslims today, and you enjoy the place you have in American society today because Know-Nothings like Trump didn’t prevail.

And don’t try to pretend I’m comparing apples to oranges—the fact is that Catholics were viewed with suspicion because it was thought they were basically the Pope’s political tools in the U.S., and at the same time that Catholics were trying to argue that wasn’t the case, Pius IX (Quanta Cura, The Syllabus of Errors) was seemingly doing everything in his power to say that Protestants were exactly right and American Catholics were his political tools. Yet Catholics were eventually accepted to the extent that they now are trying to do to others what was done to them.

 

[Convert_in_99]

Not only am I voting for trump. I’m excited to do so.

I’m a very conservative republican. And I am convinced trump is the best option.

I’m genuinely surprised on this. You seem like you’d be a more conservative third party voter in this particular election. Not trying to change your mind, it just surprised me.

 

[xNoOnex]

I probably won’t vote for the presidential election. I’ll vote, like I always do, on local issues but if I cast my vote for a presidential candidate, it’ll be another absurd protest vote. Did Cthulhu, last cycle.

Ignoring Clinton’s pro-choice, she’s proven to be untrustworthy. Her stances shift with the times and while some conservatives dread her, the money that’s financing her campaign is proof that she has no real alliance to progressive causes. Liberals are just pawns in her game of power.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s equally unreliable. And even if he’s genuinely changed his mind on issues like abortion, its hard to consider him “pro-life”. Especially when he’s made comments about bringing back “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding”. (His words, not mine.) So a candidate, outwardly supporting torture seems little better.

 

[7_Sorrows]

Obama has children and has said he wouldn’t burden his children with grandchildren by having his daughters abort them.

Saying Trump has children and grandchildren, doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

I am sure that Obama means what he says. I don’t really see your point. Obama and Trump are two different categories.

 

[Stylteralmaldo]

Would he do anything to jeopardize their safety or future? He is still a father and grandfather…

I am sure that Obama means what he says. I don’t really see your point. Obama and Trump are two different categories.

By referencing Trump being a father and grandfather, I took that as implying that he had/has his children and grandchildren’s best interests in mind.

Did Trump have his children’s best interest in mind when he had an affair while married to his children’s mother? (I.e. dishonest with spouse and as an extension potentially shows his character as to how much his children meant to him)

My point is that just because he’s a father or grandfather doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t qualify him or any other candidate as meaning what they say merely because they happen to be a parent or grandparent.

 

[Stylteralmaldo]

To be honest, I think I would have to vote for Trump if it came down to a race between Trump and Clinton. The simple reason being that voting for an independent candidate is basically just throwing away your vote.

From my perspective it is only throwing away your vote if you can’t decide which of the two is worse for the country. I am in such a situation. I’ve concluded that Clinton is not an option. Trump has shown me little that he is unlike Clinton. Unless I can decipher that, it’ll be 3rd party for me.

 

[7_Sorrows]

I don’t understand 3rd party voters - why vote for someone who has no chance to win?

 

[J_Peterson]

To be honest, I think I would have to vote for Trump if it came down to a race between Trump and Clinton. The simple reason being that voting for an independent candidate is basically just throwing away your vote.

Voting for someone you don’t support is throwing your vote away. Actually it’s more like giving something of value to someone who doesn’t deserve it (pearls before swine and all that). Vote your conscience. Pragmatism only benefits the powerful.

 

[GaryTaylor]

I don’t understand 3rd party voters - why vote for someone who has no chance to win?

I don’t know nor ever heard it clearly explained, but I have to think theres a valid point and thus give credit where its due.

But why pretend its some noble theory when in fact its a vote to help Hillary win. I suppose one might find some type of relief and venture down the rabbit hole of relevance but to me its a vote for the greater evil.

I suppose one might rationalize there are enough people to make up for them so they may avoid the dilemma of one irrelevant vote. Who would win if we all thought as such and no-one took a stand?

Just saying I really don’t expect a response more of a rhetorical proposition.

 

[Vanny]

I despise Trump. I have said I won’t vote for him- but I most DEFINITLEY do not want Hillary in the WH. 4 years of Hillary would be a disaster.
I have waffled between sitting it out, voting 3rd party(writing in Cruz) or voting for Trump.
I was a solid Cruz supporter. Actually, I am quite angry because we had several stellar, PRO LIFE, candidates, and one true constitutional conservative in the race, but they all got rejected for some one whom I don’t consider either pro-life or a conservative. Frankly he flip flops on positions every time I see the news.
Oh, I know, the wall, the wall? Think he’s really gonna build it?
Trump has 6 months to convince me I need to vote for him.
Oh I know, Hillary.
What a mess.
If I vote for him in November, keeping Hillary out of the White House would be the only reason. (Lesser of two evils vote?)

 

[Vanny]

I don’t understand 3rd party voters - why vote for someone who has no chance to win?

I used to think just like you-but if/when Trump turns out to be Hitler, at least I can say I didn’t vote for him!
Not that Hillary is any better.

 

[Stylteralmaldo]

I don’t understand 3rd party voters - why vote for someone who has no chance to win?

I don’t know nor ever heard it clearly explained, but I have to think theres a valid point and thus give credit where its due.

But why pretend its some noble theory when in fact its a vote to help Hillary win. I suppose one might find some type of relief and venture down the rabbit hole of relevance but to me its a vote for the greater evil.

I suppose one might rationalize there are enough people to make up for them so they may avoid the dilemma of one irrelevant vote. Who would win if we all thought as such and no-one took a stand?

Just saying I really don’t expect a response more of a rhetorical proposition.

I’ve never contemplated voting 3rd party until this election cycle. I’ve always been the type of voter that considered voting 3rd party as wasting a vote. As a matter of fact, just before this election cycle started, I had a face to face discussion with someone who voted 3rd party in 2012. I let him know that his vote to the 3rd party candidate helped elect Obama to another 4 years. I asked him how he could allow Obama to win especially given his direct attacks on religious freedom.

Yet here I am, considering the 3rd party option. I’ve pretty much followed Trump’s political endeavors throughout my adult life and he’s been nothing short of, not just liberal, but of the ultra-liberal variety. Then all of a sudden he’s running as a Republican, switches some stances (which he has had difficultly keeping consistent throughout this election cycle) to make himself appear less ultra-liberal (moderate socially, still liberal fiscally - just not ultra liberal) and given this recent ‘change of heart’, I’m supposed to just accept him as not the same as Clinton (which he has donated to in the past) without seeing anything concrete from him that validates his claims?

I haven’t ruled Trump out entirely yet - mostly because he says the right things for the most part (except when he says outlandish things like deporting 11 million illegal aliens and killing the families of terrorists).

If he has truly had a change of heart the way he has historically viewed things, I need him to show me something concrete before I can pull the lever in his favor. Presently, he’s all talk and no action.

As I stated above, I’m only considering 3rd party because I haven’t decided whether Trump is for real and therefore just as bad. Clinton has fallen into the pit of ‘no’. Trump is on the fence for me. He could fall either way.

The Supreme Court is a critical determining factor for me. Clinton is guaranteed to nominate pro-death justices. Trump is (IMO) likely to do so as well (seeing how he is both a social and fiscal liberal as well as someone who leans moreso towards nationalism opposed to states rights). The big difference is that Republicans will more likely oppose Clinton liberal appointees (ala ‘Bork’ them) than Trump liberal appointees. The Republican Party may very well die if Trump wins as Trump has opposed everything traditionally Republican. If that changes over the next six months, I can reconsider my 3rd party leanings at the present, but until then, Trump remains on my fence (and as an extension, I’m still on the fence as to how I will vote this November).