What to make of a GOP candidate who openly supported Barack Obama for president in 2008? Now, several Republican candidates this cycle admit to having voted in the 2008 Democratic Primary. They were engaging in the Rush Limbaugh-inspired “Operation Chaos” — supporting Hillary Clinton to oppose Barack Obama and disrupt the Democratic Party.
It certainly didn’t affect the Democratic Party, but could well have endangered some down-ballot conservatives fending off challenges by left-of-center Republicans.
But candidate Jay Kleberg in El Paso (HD 78) took his protest further. He said in a video interview he voted “for Barack Obama” as a “protest” to GOP leadership, and that he wants to take the party of Reagan in a different direction.
Sounds like he has a faulty political compass.
At best it is faulty logic to protest bad GOP leadership by voting for a far-left liberal in a general election. A “protest vote” would be a write-in, voting for a third-party, skipping the race and going down-ballot, and the like. Kleberg voted for something even worse.
Maybe it’s not that his political compass is faulty. Could just be that it points left.
