If you want to discuss RINOs we can talk RINOs but you've got to agree to the correct definitions and not wobble all over the place. And Fur Shur, don't screw up what "Country Club Republican" means ~ it doesn't mean a guy who plays golf.
I don't think you know what topic you're discussing. You made a statement about voters who think they can punish Republicans by staying home. You don't understand why some voters stay home. They stay home because the Republican candidate, or presidential nominee offered has very different views from theirs on some of their most important issues. Sometimes, the candidate presents a gap so wide that they can't cross it. Such a situation is most likely created by a RINO, or 'moderate' Republican.
With McCain, it might have been amnesty, cap and trade, drilling in ANWR and offshore (he never agreed to anything unless the state involved agreed), campaign reform, pandering to interest groups, and his history of backstabbing his own party. Many republicans had several reasons to dislike McCain, and that kept a fair number at home.
Many took the view that it was better to have Obama than McCain, that Obama would be so extreme that voters would turn on him and the Dems, then we'd start to come back and there would be less damage in the long run than with McCain and a Dem. Congress. We are now in the months that will determine that.
But some conservative Republicans will stay home when the Republican candidate is too far from their issues. Everyone doesn't do lesser of two evils. Doesn't matter who likes that or doesn't like it. That's reality.