The lesson of Bill Buckley:
"Conservative" Constitutional ideology is indeed the province of the Thinking Person. We persons rarely number enough to win an election, and most often have scant luck attracting the less intelligent to the cause of voting with enlightened self interest .... well, because they are not enlightened, perhaps even incapable of achieving it. YTet they have the franchise.
So what can Conservatives do to influence the government policies of those candidates who do win elections? Bill's answer was to have us fight for Congressional Representation, and perhaps more important, to fight for every local and state post. The other battlefield is the courtroom.
Democracy means (and has always meant) the electorate's choice of the better (or lesser) of two evils ... which hopefully coincides with my (or your) idea ... especially our brand of democracy, which btw, no one said was guaranteed to last forever. And before you chime in with "But we're a Republic!" Just remember that we chose to become one by democratic means.
#318: Has Romney promised you a job? What other reason could there be for someone posing as a conservative to support the Massachusetts mushball, pro-abort, family institution destroying, socialized medicine enthusing, serial lying, utterly coreless, global warming flunky, tax hiking (on ordinary folks only to shift the burden from his spoiled and privileged Wall Street financiers) etc. Romney is a useless POS who will not only wreck this country but also leave it without even an opposition party to bipartisan Obamunism.
#319: I knew Bill Buckley for years. I suspect you did not. My wife worked directly for him for years. Don't try to lay off your mushy moderation and rejection of principle on Bill.
Bill famously stated on many occasions that he would rather be governed by 100 names chosen randomly from the telephone directory than by 100 members of the Yale or Harvard faculties. So much for pseudo-intellectual elitism which is no more valid than the money-grubbing kind.
Further, Bill's brother James Lane Buckley (not a smooth natural schmoozer or baby-kissing politician), managed to carry none too conservative New York State in a Senate race as Ronaldus Maximus twice did in POTUS races. In 1980, Reagan came verrrrry close to carrying New York City, closer than any GOP candidate by far than any since Calvin Coolidge actually carried New York City in 1924. Coolidge was NOT a noted moderate mushball although he had been governor of Massachusetts (a much earlier and much more conservative Massachusetts).
Reagan was also a LOT more popular in Massachusetts than Romney ever dreamed of being as evidenced by their respective election results.
Somehow, I don't recall Bill Buckley urging Reagan to run for some obscure but safely GOP Congressional seat. That's because Bill never did suggest that. AND Bill did not fear democratic election processes. Waxing philosophical after a loss is not the same as adopting the profile of the cowardly RINO surrender monkeys and leftists in GOP drag who make up the GOP-Elite. They would be flat out Democrats reflecting their belief structures if they could stand rubbing elbows socially with poor folks, Blacks or Hispanics who are all rarities at their polo clubs.
We may resort to courts from time to time out of necessity and as last stands such as with Obozocare (Romneycare?), Second Amendment issues in the face of general elitist stupidity and other leftist shrinking from the plain language of that amendment, or other occasional issues, but we are far better off crushing our enemies at the polls. We can do that with a Reagan but never with a Dole or a Ford or a McCain or the other pantywaist elitist Republican types. We are generally more likely to be subjected judicially to a black-robed wall of elitist tyranny such as is represented by Roe vs. Wade and similarly infamous and quite unconstitutional examples of elitist social revolution masquerading as law and proving that the system of checks and balances has been fatally defective since Marbury vs. Madison, if not earlier.
The danger with Romney is that the conservative base soooooo despises Obozo, and understandably so, that it may be tempted this one time to deliver for such a despicable and even more damaging cretin like Romney, inadvertently doing more damage than even Obozo and his "tsars" are capable of doing. I well understand that our democracy or republic or democratic republic or nation itself is not guaranteed to be perpetual. Do you? AND do you understand how close we are to the end? This nation lost the Democrat Party to the McGovernite Demonrats (communists and their absolute tools) in 1972, apparently permanently. If Romney is elected, there will be now and for the far foreseeable future NO GOP TO DEFEND this nation's institutions and way of life.
Democracy means the electorate's choice (with certain limitations like the distribution of Senate seats at two per state regardless of size, gerrymandering as a way of life, and the Electoral College mechanism. It was not a choice of evils when the GOP was forced to nominate Ronaldus Maximus twice. In those elections, the choice was good vs. evil: Reagan vs. Carter and then Reagan vs. Mondale. In 1968, 1972, 1976, 1988, 1992, 1996, and 2008, it was a choice between evils. For me, the jury is still out on 2000 and 2004 because the jury is still out on Dubya whose opponents were certainly evil. 2012 will be the worst choice of evils yet if we only look at the two major parties.
Your post did not pain you. It reflects your beliefs. It does not pain me because it does not deserve such serious attention as to do so.