Norm, you have asked a very good question. You will always be a conservative as will I, but in the imperfect world of politics, sometimes it makes the most sense to vote for a semi-conservative in order to stop our Leftward drift and reverse course.
If you have two viable candidates for an office (and this will almost always be a Republican and a Democrat, none of this 1% third party stuff), one has to ask which of these two candidates will be with me more than the other?
The answer is usually quite clear. Even someone who is only 50% as conservative as me is much better than someone who is at 0%. To use worn out cliches, I hold my nose, and vote for the lesser of two evils. If my vote turns out to be for the winner, than that will blunt the Left, even if it is only a little.
Then in a couple of years, we work on getting more Ted Cruz like people into office. In the meantime, the Left has less power over us. That is incrementalism. I suggest that we on the Right have to use incrementalism to move this country away from the Marxist/godless abyss of the Left.
Excellent and well said. The only thing I would change ...
Instead of “To use worn out cliches, I hold my nose, and vote for the lesser of two evils.”
I’d say “I hold my nose, and vote for the candidate most likely to slow our leftward drift away from freedom.”
I’m onboard. We need to elect republicans even if they aren’t as conservative as we want. We can’t take this leftward drift much more.
Then do not complain about the amnesty/homosexualization/ebola fiasco, wars and the rest. Because you will get what you vote for.
I admit I've done that a couple of times in my voting history. And I expect I'll do it on occasion in the future. The GOP does not own me.
It's quite another thing to go off on tirades (oops.... I mean TIRADES!!!) about how Sen. Roberts is a leftist tool, or how McConnell is worse than Obama. These are clear signs that one's cranial tinfoil is wrapped too tight.