Excellent treatise. However, it overlooks one key factor: cowardice.
Many, if not most, of those who adopt the “he’s great but he can’t win” position have been provided these same arguments repeatedly by members of this forum, but the fundamental lack of stomach for an uphill battle renders all reasoned arguments moot.
DesScorp showed up just in time for post 39
::grins::
I think you spoke volumes in those few lines. It boils down to “if we don’t ‘believe’ what we believe”, why should anyone else? Cowardice is apt and then there is this nearly obsessive need to be on the bandwagon of a perceived winner. How is one a perceived winner? Polls and name recognition, that’s all any of the top 4 possess and the electorate is too apathetic and/or shortsighted to realize they are being shaped, molded and led by the nose, via the media.
It’s a bit like Global warming, a popular product to be sure and it gets plenty of play in the media. Forget the facts, it’s a crisis, it said so on TV! It’s popular and it “feels right” so people flex to conformity and spin the facts to make it fit so that they remain on the popular, winning side. After all, it’s a scientific consensus and they aren’t knuckle-dragging, flat-earthers. Character and courage of conviction are for one- percenter-types and not for them. :)