I am actually suggesting abandoning the principle which I articulated in my last post and which I operated under in 2012: To support the most conservative candidate who can win.
Below the presidential level (and perhaps even including the presidential level), we should now consider a nuclear option: if a senator or congressman is insufficiently conservative in Washington, we conservatives should turn against him even at the cost of losing the election and enabling a Democrat to take the office.
This option is very dangerous and is liable to go out of control. It certainly cannot be employed across the board because that would mean suicide for conservatism as well as fratricide for Rino-ism. But an isolated examples such as in Mississippi or, perhaps, against Boehner or McConnell, conservatives should consider running a third-party candidate or even voting for the Democrat. But to do so is to understand that if it is done in more than one or two races it would ultimately be self-defeating. It must also be understood that there is no ready means of controlling such a movement and it is therefore liable to run out of control. Finally, if it is not made clear by the media that it is conservatism that has turned the balance in the election (an unlikely scenario), the point will be lost and the seat will be pointlessly lost.
Nevertheless, I think we conservatives should work our way through to a viable doctrine to modify Bill Buckley's doctrine because the times have changed and time is running out. The establishment of the Republican Party by its actions in Mississippi and in the seventh district of Virginia have behaved so egregiously as to make clear beyond doubt that they cannot be reformed. I don't think they can even be intimidated, but it is worth a try. The odds are against either reforming our intimidating the Rino establishment because the establishment has control over big money and uses it to swamp conservatives. The last step is a whole new party or a revolution within the party. If we can make clear in controlled and limited elections that conservatives hold Rinos' electoral future in their hands and are now willing to pull the trigger in other elections, perhaps intimidation will suffice.
The alternative, is a third-party which will either take over the Republican Party or be taken over by the Republican Party and while that occurs Democrats will rule and we will have ruin.
Norm, as you will see I am moving toward what I believe is your position.
