This is inspired by what ive heard both about the political situation here and in america, what i want to know is what makes you vote for someone or a political party, personally i vote for the parrty i feel has the most policies i can agree with and that has the best leader, at the moment thats the Liberal Democrats and thats unlikely to change given the nature of the other two parties. Basicaly do you vote for who you think is best or are there (as the media suggests) other factors, party loyalty, religion, gender, race and so on. Also if this is the case, why?

Economics first. A strong Economy is the backbone of the country.

After that i perfer an even split.

If the republicans hold the congress I generally perfer a democrat as president and vice versa.

GOP member. Race is a non-issue but the 26% of crossover Clinton voters disagree w/ me on that. Experience; Iraq.

I support the conservative party(canada). I find the other parties rather lacking in areas that are of a particular concern to me. I also find my prime minister to be extremely competent.

Lots of factors, but what makes it an easy choice is when a politician supports abortion. There is no way I can vote for such a candidate, which generally means that in America I vote republican. The two parties have pretty much taken opposite sides on the issue, with democrats on the loosing side. Democrats really should remove that from the party platform.