Party time!

Political party, that is. An interesting discussion came up on The Bump about voting preferences that really got me thinking.

Someone stated that they thought Obama was doing a bad job, but that they would vote for him again anyhow. Their logic was that he more closely represents their value system than McCain/Romney/Bachmann/whoever, so they would rather cast their vote for him even though they knew he would do a bad job.

Personally, I feel that voting for a competent candidate is more important than party lines. An example of that would be that I would rather vote Democratic than vote for Michele Bachmann, because I think she's an embarassment and an idiot. I think it would be a worse idea to vote for an incompetent candidate than to vote for someone whose value system is different from mine. (Personally, I think Ron Paul is the way to go, but a third party candidate probably will not make it into office any time soon.)

So, which do you feel is more important? Voting along party lines, or voting for someone you feel will be good at the job?