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“About as electable as Palin or Bachmann when independents and moderates walk. So what you are saying is that none of them are electable. How do you recommend we solve this problem?”

Moderates don’t walk. Moderates vote their self-interest every time, which means they usually vote left to begin with because in the GOP, mods are about power and government gets them there. That doesn’t happen in elections like this, though, because the economy is in the crapper and everyone is going to be voting against Obama unless there’s a sudden 180 for business. That isn’t in the cards, because Obama’s too stupid or too leftist or both to move right.

So this election isn’t a LBJ vs. Goldwater season. It’s a Carter vs. to-be-named-later season. We can either make the GOP candidate a Carter-lite or a proven conservative. And if the choice is a Carter-lite, a lot of conservatives will step out to third parties.

Where would moderates normally go if they were to step out? Where they always go—to the other party. But again, that isn’t the case this time, they have to do something different, even though their preferred candidates (Romney, Perry, Huntsman) aren’t all that different from Bush or Obama when it comes to their records of governance.

That isn’t the case for conservatives. They have waited years for a conservative to lead after talking tough, but we keep getting Boehnered and McConnelled. I don’t see them taking it lying down this primary season, as unlike moderates, we know that this time, if the election is between more and more of the same, the country is likely going to hell in a handbasket permanently. We didn’t line up to vote for McCain for that very reason—we wanted something different from Bush, but McCain wasn’t that at all.

Since you sincerely want my recommendation, it is that, not knowing the entire field yet, we should vote to nominate a Bachmann or at least a Paul type. At least those walk the walk from what we can see. Either would be change we really can believe in.