Patheos’s political question of the week is “For whom will you vote, and why?” The e-mail that went out to all of the relevant bloggers explained, “The challenge is to make a case for your preferred candidate in light of your most deeply held convictions.”

Normally, I’d blow this one right off because most of my deeply held convictions have nothing to do with politics. Indeed, that is the thing I react most violently against in American politics today: it knows no bounds.

The government grows ever larger and it dominates more of our time, our anxieties, our decisions. This is not healthy. Nor is it sustainable.

Democrats in DC truly believe the right solution to almost every problem is more government, even when that government threatens to trample religious liberties underfoot — as the Obama administration is set to do in a second term with its implementation of Obamacare. Some would assign to Obama and company base motives, but I truly believe they are incapable of seeing the issues any other way. A better, Buckleyan term for it would be invincible ignorance.

I am not a Republican but one of the reasons I end up voting that way more often than not is that the GOP has made some effort to restrain politics to its rightful place. It’s best to vote for Republicans with both eyes open, however, and selectively.

The other day I filled out my ballot here in Washington state, which has not the remotest chance of casting its Electoral College votes for Romney. This means my vote is really just a statement of preference. And so, as in the last election cycle, I voted for my dad, Bob Lott. (The last time I voted for a Republican for president was in 2000.)

The Bob Lott vote was no joke, though if I voted in a swing state like Virginia, I would have at least considered voting for Romney. Not because I trust him politically, mind you, but because Obama has been so awful on so many issues of great import — from spending to Obamacare to now just flat out lying about what happened in Libya. It might be nice if somebody showed him the door.

Many of my other votes for statewide races and for Congress went to Republicans, with one very obvious exception. Brad Owen is Democrat, but something of a throwback who recognizes that politics ought to have limits. He’s Washington State’s Lieutenant Governor who has served with distinction in that constitutionally small office since 1996.

As the world’s most living expert on the vice presidents, I never take lightly the possibility that the number two will have to step into a larger role. My political disagreements with the lieutenant governor are considerable, but everything we’ve seen of the man over the past 16 years leads me to believe Owen would make a fine governor, should the need arise.

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