“No candidate is perfect, so we always settle for good enough or lesser of two evils. The alternative is to become irrelevant. If you think staying home and allowing a democrat to be elected will ultimately lead to a conservative being elected down the road you are deluding yourself.”
I agree with most of what you have to say and voted for Romney myself. But if conservatives let it be known that they will always vote for a candidate who is a 5 on a scale from 1 to 10 if the Dem. alternative is a 1 or 2, why should any Republican hopeful ever be a 7 or 8 — not a “perfect” conservative (who would not get elected in a general election anyway) but at least a credible conservative?
Because at some point a good viable conservative will come along, and if we can join together to support that candidate (rather than divide our efforts as we did this time), that candidate will have a shot. At this point I think our best bet would be for Romney to throw his support to McCain in return for the veep slot. If McCain loses Romney would be the natural front runner in 2012. If McCain wins and only serves one term (as I think is likely) then again Romney is the front runner for 2012.
If you eliminate emotional arguments and think about the best thing for the country, that is the play that makes sense.