[GilesB]

OK, I understand the concern about damaging the brand - but I will hold, and did hold, Republicans in congress as responsible for brand damage as Bush. They have to have some backbone, nobody ever promised them an easy stroll in the park - if they didn’t realize that this is war, then too bad for them.

We have the Tea Party now, and these folks understand the difference between the man and the brand, and they should lend some spine to congress, if not to the presidency.

If Obama wins, and that is the only realistic alternative to Romney, I’m afraid 2014 and 2016 elections are just fantasies, and worrying about damage to the brand would be much like watering the lawn while the house is burning down.

One of the problems the GOP has is her eagerness to scuttle flawed leaders (and which aren’t?) if the press latches onto a foible. Know why idiots like Pelosi and Reid and Biden and Debbie W-S still have power? Because even when they say or do something completely moronic (which is often) or corrupt (which is almost as often) the party unifies behind them and props them up until they get their feet back under themselves.

Not so the GOP, with the smallest misstep, leading lights of the party are ready to dump all over someone who has heretofor performed heroic feats of political bravery and gamesmanship. While on the one hand, I don’t think the party should turn a blind eye to wrong action (Denny Hastert’s featherbedding, for instance), I think they are far to eager to destroy their own - the way they did Newt, for example.

I, too, am looking for the perfect leader, but He won’t come by the ballot box. Until that time, I will vote first to save my country from the likes of Obama (the party be damneed - I put my country ahead of any party), and second to promote the conservative philosophy of liberty, personal responsibility and small government - but I’d rather be doing that promotion in a country I recognize than in one where I will be squashed for even thinking such thoughts.

[so_real]

Do you honestly believe Romney -- of his own accord -- can defeat Obama? I do not. We have a third place loser to John McCain (not exactly a wealth of conservative philosophy himself), leading the party of conservatism. We have a man who professes to a religion the black community finds offensive, charged with enticing the minority vote to forsake a minority incumbent. Romney was the only primary candidate who statistically could not win the general election. That is to say ... he could not win on his own. The only way he finds victory is if Obama throws him the election. And I see that happening. It's happening because the powers that pull Obama's strings find more value in damaging the republican brand and taking the wind out of Tea Party sails than in having four more consecutive years in the executive office. And why not? Their initiatives are safe in Romney's hands for a while, and permitting Obama to leave the Whitehouse without handcuffs or impeachment papers gives durability to the efforts he leaves behind. In two or four years they'll own the Congress once more and installing a liberal POTUS will be an inexpensive task. If Obama is throwing the election, and I am right, electing Romney will be among the greatest errors ever made by a conservative electorate. You are being given two cups and told you must drink from one for fear of the other. The year is 2012 and the cups are filled with kool-aid rather than tea. But what we must do remains the same now as it was then ... empty the cup into the harbor.