In the case of `12 (Romney/Obama) I saw it as a Morton's fork: either choice leading to the same result. (Seriously, what's one major political policy that Romney would be different on?)
(Morton's Fork vs Catch-22)
Some folk seem not to understand who our real enemy is - liberals, not a different kind or less politically strict conservative.
Romney is a liberal; and you'd be hard-pressed to call the Republican party anything but liberal given their unwillingness to act against liberal policies. (And, indeed, there's also the we're going to crush the Tea Party
quotes we've heard from them.)
That's why conservatives lose much of the time, unlike liberals.
Conservatives lose because when the other guy's worse
works to pump up a liberal candidate and put him in, guess what, a liberal's in.
Liberals know whom their enemies are, conservatives and conservatives often confuse those more or less conservative than they to be their enemies not liberals, so the most conservative candidate loses out to a liberal.
I hear what you're saying. I think one of the reasons we're fractured is because of GOP loyalists who insist voting GOP is the ONLY way to win, even when GOP puts forth an unacceptable candidate.