This is my first forey into the political forums and I know that my ideas are in the minority. I am doing this because I miss Palooka's Saturday morning chats. They have caused me untold deaths in WOW but were amazing conversations.

Now back to my perspective. I do generally identify myself with the Democratic party for numerous reasons but I have never voted a straight ticket anything and for each candidate I do actually look at what I am voting for.

In this election my decisions came down to these very personal economic decisions.

1) Governor
I voted for the democratic candidate because the Republican candidate had a policy stance, regarding stem cell research that I found hostile to my line of work. I work in molecular biology research and particularly cancer. If the Republican was elected the state would have become more hostile toward biological research and stem cell research in particular. I thought this would diminish my long term prospects for job opportunities in the state. In addition, my particular area of research is to discover why cells choose a particular tissue fate because cancer is essentially embryogenesis in reverse. (This is of course a gross simplification.) So I could see a day when I would need to colaborate with individuals who work with stem cells.
The main point is not whether you agree or disagree with my reasoning, we can argue that later, but only that you see it was a personal economic decision that had little to do with party affiliation, the war in Iraq, or the national economy.

2) The House of Representatives
Again I voted for the representative because he has an excellent record of sending money to the home district. ( I also checked his voting record on several issues important to me and his record was acceptable if not stellar). In case you are wondering, yes, in Texas I often voted for Republican candidates for this reason as well. Again it's a small scale economic decision.

Perhaps you disagree with my small scale view point, we can argue whether it is better in the long run to look at the forest or the trees. However what you cannot say is that I went in blindly and pulled a lever.

If you would prefer me not to share my input I can do that as well since I am well aware that I am in the minority and the probablility of changing another's mind is remote. I can certainly refrain from intruding, because everyone needs a place to go to gripe.