so what's the best use of the primary vote for governor?

[paulkienitz]

Jerry Brown has no need of my vote, so I'm wondering what other use my open-primary vote might be best put to.

1) I could vote for Jerry because he's adequate and it would be neat for him to get over 50%, making November a formality
2) I could vote for Cindy Sheehan, to remind Jerry that he's not automatically entitled to progressive votes without progressive policies
3) I could vote for the most moderate republican so as to try to steer the party back to a more reasonable mainstream position
4) or I could vote for the tea party candidate, because GOP establishment strategists are shit-scared that he'll embarrass the whole party and drive people to vote D in other races, possibly tipping one or two more of the state's House seats into the blue column.

Option 4 is lowdown and disreputable, but tempting. What do you-all think I should do?

[upaloopa]

1. Vote for the person who will be the best for

CA
I think that is Jerry Brown. Cindy may be more left but I don't think she has leadership skills enough on all the issues.
I am voting for Brown

[SoonerShankle]

2. I have long been a proponent of using...

...my primary vote for the candidate I want rather than the candidate I feel will win/has to win. But in this new primary format, it makes the primary the "will win/have to win" vote just as much as the general election.

I'm voting for Brown because he has done good in a bad situation. I don't have to agree with him on all the issues to see he has the experience, the steadiness, the leadership--he's got the goods. So I'm all for ending this thing as early as possible and saving a lot of campaign money requests, phone calls, crappy ads and mailers from hitting my house. Winning early really does make the long run much easier.

[paulkienitz]

3. I believe the november runoff will still happen even if Jerry gets 60%

though admittedly, that might discourage conservative campaign donors, keeping the noise to a minimum.




I'll just add that when I lived in Oakland, I voted against Jerry for mayor.