During an online chat session yesterday, a participant named David asked a question of Dodd for President staffer Matt Browner-Hamlin:

Hey Matt, while I agree with most of Dodd’s positions, I’m still concerned that supporting Dodd might really be supporting Hillary given the current situation. How can I reconcile that?

Matt Browner-Hamlin replied:

Well David, primaries are fights for the soul of a party and I think personally that standing up and fighting for the person who best embodies the way you want the country to look is always the best thing. I’m an optimist — I think sitting and assuming that Conventional Wisdom about the shape of the race is right only confirms conventional wisdom and disempowers voters. I’d rather work to make someone a winner than try to pick who I think will win now to look smart and avoid working. I think most people would rather do that too.

I love to follow the polls, and I like the excitement of political horse races. But at the end of the day I agree with Matt. Living here in Ohio, by the time the primaries come the presidential nominees will be pretty much decided upon. That, and the fact that I’ve never registered with a political party, means that I’m not going to be able to take part in choosing the Democratic or Republican presidential nominee. But if I were living in a state voting through the first half of February — as a really big chunk of the nation does — in the primaries, I’d vote for the candidate whose positions I agreed with, no matter what their chances were supposed to be. If the rest of the state didn’t follow along with me? Well, that’s their fault.