“...why didn’t you and the rest of the GOP put up someone who could win the election?”
While I don’t particularly agree with McCain....Even W was almost perceived as “too right wing” to win an election. The reality of modern USA politics..is that the “ideal” candidate for each party is too extreme to win the general. What we got here ..is that we forced the Dems into their “extreme” candidate...while we got a more middle-of-the-road candidate...who undoubtedly will win this fall.
Finally, at least a bit of reasoned thinking and not fantasy and blame. WHile I believe that Obama is ‘their most extreme’ candidate, I do not believe McCain is the “middle of the road” candidate you espouse. Regardless, it is perhaps the most reasoned explanation I have heard regarding the current GOP predicament. I’d like to make myself perfectly clear —— I don’t want Obama as president, nor do I want McCain president; as Shakespeare would say “and, therein lies the rub!” However, I cannot accept the length and breadth to which McCain has rammed my princples up my nether regions, but I am honestly looking for some alternative. McCain’s brief concise statement on the SCOTUS’ ruling on 2A was a start.
How can the populace be expected to vote conservative when many so-called Republicans hardly even try to articulate conservative positions, or suggest that anything's wrong with liberal ones?
There are many situations in poker where it would make sense to either raise the stakes or to fold, but it would make no sense to call. Although a "call" might seem like a reasonable compromise option between raising and folding, it may be the worst possible choice.
I would suggest that the same is often true in politics. If liberals are proposing a program and a conservative staunchly opposes it, pointing out precisely why it won't work, then even if the program passes over his objection he will be well-placed to blame its failings on the liberals. By contrast, if a RINO suggests that the program should be funded for half the requested level and the program then fails (as of course it will), its failings will be blamed on "conservatives" and its funding will be increased each year, since its continuous failings will obviously be a result of evil conservatives' underfunding.