There are certainly a lot of people who feel as you do. And many others who disagree 100%. And both are groups of mature, reasonable people.
My concern is that a vote is only one of the assets we can contribute to any campaign. Money, time, and enthusiasm are very important as well.
Rather than having a candidate that the conservative base can’t wait to get out and support (through volunteer work, financial contributions, “word of mouth” advocacy, etc.), we appear to have a candidate that many of us can barely stomach the idea of voting for.
Even if every one of the conservatives currently opposing McCain ends up voting for him, he will end up with far less support in these other areas than a more conservative candidate would.
Is this the conservatives’ fault? Or McCain’s?
I believe the grave concerns conservatives have are justified.
You make a point, but the only variables in the equation are not (Conservatives) and (McCain). There are (Moderate Republicans) and (Independents) as well as a host of other variables. It is surely not the fault of conservatives, certainly not in any large numbers. This is the fault of the GOP electorate and the party elites.
Conservatives just do not have the numbers anymore to get a nominee. Conservative is relative of course as Romney was considered “conservative” and a few other candidates that were moderates and centrists at best.
I am not sure what I will do. I am pretty sure what the GOP electorate will do. They will get behind McCain all the way. When either Obama or Clinton get the nod they will do something that will fire up the base and get them on board with McCain. It is much easier to get voters to vote against one of them than to vote for McCain.
Vanity posts like this one do nothing but harm to McCain’s chances and offend the very ones he needs to elect him. Conservatives have a right to throw a tantrum and take their ball home. Whatever a conservative chooses to do is up to each one of them. Either way, I have no problem with them.
This is like a town with two restaurants. One sells hamburgers and the other chicken and any other restaurant is 400 miles away. We love hamburgers and hate chicken. So the hamburger restaurant starts serving something that is like hamburger but is mixed with fillers and just doesn’t taste as good. If we keep eating and buying those awful burgers, they will keep making them and selling them to us. They know we aren’t going to eat chicken because we hate it.
If we stop buying their burgers they may go out of business but maybe not because the other patrons say, “well, at least it’s not chicken”. So do we keep supporting them knowing we are not getting the best, just because it isn’t chicken? Or do we keep our money in our pockets hoping that will effect a change and stay home and eat? I have no answers, so far. But I hope you enjoyed the Hamburger/Chicken Allegory, heh.