Note "might be" is better than "is".
But even if Romney "is" as bad as Obama -- which btw is something I don't think is possible -- we should still vote for him because Obama must be fired.
We are not picking a president this election. We are firing one. It's that simple.
It is that last part that folks like me don't concede. I think Romney could easily be worse for conservatism and worse for our country than four more years of Obama. If Obama is elected, I think we face four years of gridlock because all Republicans in the Congress will resist his proposals. If Romney is elected and is actually a conservative or decides to pretend to be conservative (as rogue yam might put it), then we will probably have gridlock because of Democrat resistance in the Senate. However, if Romney is elected and he is a liberal or decides to pretend to be liberal, then he can count on RINO's and Democrats to enact any liberal proposals he might want to enact. He will be able to accomplish what Obama cannot.
For that reason, it is vital to a conservative voter to know now exactly what we can expect from a President Romney. And, speaking for myself only, when I view the videos linked in posts 169 and 172 above, I conclude that Romney probably is a liberal and that, at best, it is utterly impossible for me to know whether he is actually a liberal, a moderate, a conservative, or just a manipulative sociopath with no philosophy.
In addition, I believe that the only way to get the GOP to nominate a reliably conservative candidate is to make folks like Karl Rove understand that the GOP cannot count on conservative support without a conservative candidate. If Romney gets pounded in November, maybe that message will be a bit more clear to GOP leaders.
“We are not picking a president this election. We are firing one. It’s that simple.”
You are the ONLY ABO I have seen that clearly articulates their position. Although I see will not vote for Romney nor do I think what you are doing is wise. I cannot condemn/berate you for your choice because I understand where you are coming from, and you are not self deluding yourself. You are voting for Romney knowing he is screwed up...and you don’t pretend otherwise. Your disdain for and fear of Obama outweighs your knowledge that Romney is not an answer. You just want Obama fired - I can respect that and don’t find it offensive. However, please don’t denigrate those of us, who out of principle and values we won’t violate, cannot ever vote for Romney. That is where I get upset with the ABO crowd - berating persons of conservative principle that won’t be swayed by fear of Obama to make an equally bad choice in Romney.
It sounds nice but it is mistaken. The hard cold truth is you're HIRING a new one. No matter how much you wish it was simply firing the old guy, no matter how much you wish you could vote against Obama, you and every American who votes lacks that option -- you can only vote FOR a different candidate to prevent Obama from winning. The price of Romney, especially risking a Romney landslide which would quickly morph from "firing Obama" into a "popular mandate for Romney's progressive style of governing" -- is so steep and so risky as to be a losing proposition.
Yet every one of us here has a duty to vote. There is a better, smarter, alternative: forfeit any influence in deciding Coke over Pepsi, and vote for a plurality to weaken the victory of whichever menace wins, as either way a menace is going to be in the White House. That is what I will be doing by voting third party at the top of the ticket in order to help all the conservatives I'll be voting for down-ticket.