There is nothing new under the sun. It is a little surprising that people are still not attuned to how it works.
No one, repeat, no one ever votes FOR all of a candidate’s positions. The only choice we ever get is the one that let’s us most probably deny the least desirable candidate power. Simply that, and nothing more. You don’t, and never will, vote FOR anyone. You always will vote AGAINST someone in the way most likely to deny them power.
GW Bush was not the great conservative savior in 1999. Gary Bauer was running. Steve Forbes was running. Alan Keyes, too. GW Bush was not the most conservative of those options then, and there were handfuls of FR people announcing that they would vote third party if anyone but their choice of 2 or three options was nominated, and then after the country had a dose of Al Gore it would “learn its lesson” and everyone in the US would become right wing.
Well, it didn’t happen — and it never will. GW Bush was the best candidate of a group of 2000 candidates that may not have been spectacular. He won. Twice. He disappointed some people now and then, and he did so far less often than Al Gore would have.
There is nothing new here. We have another group of less than spectacular candidates. Some are rightward of the moneyed choices. Some are not. It is the moneyed choices that have the best odds of winning, not just the nomination but also the election. Hillary’s money must be countered and only solid funding will do that.
So let’s just let the pressures and gaffes from all the candidates accumulate and see which is best able to manage an organization and therefore a campaign — and win. None of us are going to be voting FOR anyone in the general election. We’ll be voting to deny power to she who we would hate the most.