I dont disagree with you, in the sense that voting for liberals like Whitman or Kashkari is a quasi-endorsement for. And I certainly appreciate your kind words.
But I did mean what I wrote about viewing politics as warfare. And no war has ever been won with purity. We teamed with absolute monster, Stalin, to take out Hitler, before we took him on. As I lamented, its a shame that the Cold War didnt end the same way WW2 did. But the fact remains, we teamed with him to take out the more immediate threat. And thats exactly how I view this. I am terrified about the country may 8 year old daughter may one day inherit. Having grown up “behind the lines” in El Monte, California, Ive seen first hand how progressive-liberalism seduces the individual into forfeiting their self-determination and dignity and how they played off of our own mistakes and infighting to dominate this state and spread even more misery than the California of my youth. I am terrified they will do this to the entire nation, as paints my particular perspective. The Boehners of the world are easy to deal with. If we seize the political pulse and conversation of the nation, they will fall in line quicker than you can blink. They are opportunists, and will gladly follow the Gowdy’s and Mike Lee’s so long as their bread gets buttered. But we need the numbers to hoist men like this to power. And its not going to come if we spend the fall re-fighting the battles of spring.
Im under no illusions that Kashkari will somehow evolve into a Reagan. And he wont be my primary focus of activism this fall by any means. But Im not going to do anything to sabotage him because he beat my guy Donnelly. I’m not advocating that we acquiesce the fight for the GOP’s soul...far from it. But there is a time for that...for 2014, that time is now over. We count our victories and come to grips with our defeats and now we deal with the more immediate threat, which is a Democratic Party who will utilize any tactic or exploit any advantage to crush us.
And thats really all Im saying.
Excuse me, but voting for Whitman, voting for Romney, was not a "quasi endorsement" in function, though those who cast such votes no doubt intended them to be. The "quasi-endorsement" is pretend, a tooth fairy.
A vote for Whitman, a vote for Romney as a vote for Kashkari (if he is on the same page as Romney), was and will be a vote FOR what they stand for, no "quasi" about it.
You speak of "immediate threats," and all I see are the same threats that have gradually grown larger and larger. They are as "immediate" now as they were in Reagan's time. I have learned, and by thinking in terms of what I am voting "for" instead of voting "against" (the crux of what you advocate, in that your regard these liberal faux Republicans as place-holders, pieces in a chess game, whose hold is primarily defensive "against" the opposition, the Democrats). Your "against" is imaginary; if they lose (which they most often do), the Democrat wins; if the liberal Republican wins (which they have to ill effect in CA and in Massachusetts), this "placeholder" uses his position to pull -- and push -- everything left.
The "purity" argument is one hundred percent false and destructive. Purists are pretty much imaginary; what are legion are people who accuse others of being purists.
I would have voted for Gingrich. Believe me, he is very, very far from "pure," but I'd have voted for him. I refused to vote for Romney. To consider my stand that of a "purist" is flat erroneous.
Romney -- and by extension anyone he supports or who supports him, his camp in the Republican party -- is so fundamentally collectivist leftist, so far off the mark in not understanding out the gate, for example, that nationalized health insurance is contrary to conservatism, that compromise is neither asked nor expected. One hundred percent capitulation is demanded. To that, I finally said and say, "Nuts."
And THAT, more than partnering with Stalin, is how we won World War 2.