Replies

BillyBoy, while I’m also sickened to see the nomination contest apparently turning into a Romney vs. Newt race (although there’s still time for Santorum to break through), I think that a better message to send would be “Romney [or Newt] almost beat Obama in Illinois” (and an even better one would be “he actually beat Obama in Illinois on his way to 400 electoral votes”). Voting for the guy running on the Constitution or Libertarian Party ballot as a “protest” gets us nowhere, and you should think about whether your actions would be all that different from those of sour-grapes Dillard supporters who voted third party rather than support Brady in the general. I think that, as a general rule, we should fight it out in the primaries, and then support the nominee in the general (unless it’s a Dede Scozzofava-type who is by no measure a conservative and there’s another conservative candidate with an actual chance at winning).

I understand that many conservatives take a different approach, and point out that going along with McCain after he won the 2008 nomination has not helped us to nominate a true conservative in 2012, but if the best conservative candidates don’t run, and the conservatives who do run do not have the type of profile or résumé that voters generally look for in a presidential candidate (and also prove themselves not to be good candidates due to inconsistent statements or lack of knowledge), it’s hard to blame the RINO establishment for Newt and Romney being on top of the polls. Had someone like Jim DeMint or Paul Ryan or Bob McDonnell run, we could well have a one-on-one contest of a true conservative against Romney, and while some conservatives would surely exclaim that “DeMint [or Ryan, or McDonnell] is a RINO!” because he voted for a certain compromise bill in 2008 or something and “the only acceptable choice” is the guy who has never held public office and thus has never had to make such choices (and does not have a long voting record in which one can cherry-pick one or two votes out of thousands cast in order to accuse him of being a liberal in disguise), we would all be too busy supporting the conservative over Romney to be talking about how the process is stacked against us or how we should vote for a third-party guy (who likely would prove to be not so great had he run in the GOP primaries and everyone got to know him—think of the outrageous policy positions that Bob Barr took by the time he ran with the Libertarians, plus the fact that he’s an ass) even if it made it easier for Obama to get reelected.

I, too, supported Alan Keyes in 2000, not as a “protest” but because I was convinced that he would make the best president among the candidates in the field. But had it come down to a Bush vs. McCain fight-to-the-death, I would have voted for Bush even had Keyes been on the ballot because nominating Bush instead of McCain was more important than making a statement. Of course, by the time my primary came along, Bush had the nomination safely at hand and I was able to cast my vote for Keyes without any apprehension. But for the 2012 nomination, I’m not convinced that the difference between Romney and Newt is large enough that I will vote for one in the primary just to stop the other, and I may end up voting for Santorum even if it’s a horserace between Newt and Romney. (But, to reiterate, we are not at the point in the primary season in which it is clear that Newt and Romney will be the two candidates left standing at the end, and there’s still time for Rick Santorum to post a strong challenge for the nomination.)

Just yesterday I told a liberal Republican friend of mine (who, not surprisingly, supports Romney) that it was ridiculous for the same RINOs who claim that “we need to support the nominee in the general, since it’s in the primaries where we should fight it out” to be saying that conservatives need to “get in line” and vote for Romney in the primary. Such RINOs are doubly hypocritical, since they’re often the first ones to vote for a third-party guy or a write-in (or even the Democrat!) when a conservative wins the nomination.

I believe that, while it is not illegitimate to point out during a primary how well one expects each candidate to do in the general election (and I do that all the time, usually by noting that if a RINO wins the nomination he can expect a reduced conservative turnout), it is beyond the pale to say (barring some extreme circumstances such as a DIABLO or a racist winning the nomination) “if my guy doesn’t win, I won’t vote for the nominee.” There’s a big difference between saying “if someone who does not excite conservatives wins, you won’t have as many conservative activists volunteering for the campaign, driving elderly voters to the polls, etc.” and “if that guy wins” (or, often, “if my guy doesn’t win”) “I will write-in Jesse Helms as a protest” (and, really, there’s no difference between voting for the Constitution Party candidate and writing in the name of a dead man). We should defend our conservative principles with all our might and fight for conservative candidates uing all means that are not illegal, unethical, unfair or disingenuous, but it should be beneath us to use electoral blackmail as one of our weapons, just as it is an indictment of liberals and RINOs that they so often resort to such blackmail.

And in the general election, we should not make the perfect the enemy of the good (or of the not-so-crappy) and vote in a way that increases the odds of the worst candidate winning. Speaking of the dilemma faced by pro-life voters in an election in which the two candidates with a chance of winning are one who is 100% pro-abortion and one who is generally pro-life but supports exceptions that violate pro-life (and, I would say, human) principles, Father Frank Pavone explained that when one votes for the 90% pro-life candidate one is not choosing “the lesser of two evils” (which would be unacceptable, since evil is never a legitimate choice), but is affirmatively choosing to *limit an evil* and thus choosing a good. http://www.priestsforlife.org/vote/voting-with-clear-conscience-interdenominational.htm#choose

Applying this more generally, voting for an 80% conservative (or even a 50% conservative) over someone like Obama (who is, at best, a 5% conservative) is not an endorsement of the candidates 20% (or 50%) liberalism, but a rejection of the 95% liberalism in Obama. I have serious doubts about what kind of president Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich will be, but I have no doubt that their judicial nominees will be far more conservative than Obama’s would be (even if Romney nominated liberal judges in Massachusetts, here he won’t have an 80%+ Democrat Senate to shoot down any non-liberal nominees). And when the GOP Congress approves a budget that cuts the size of government, Nitt Romgrich will sign it into law, while Obama would veto it. And despite their unprincipled positions regarding abortion, I expect both Mitt and Newt to repeal Obama’s executive orders on abortion as soon as one of them gets to the White House. I have no delusion that I will agree with everything, or even 90% of things, that Newt or Romney would do as president, but I am absolutely certain that they will prevent a lot more evil than Obama would.

So that’s my two cents on this topic. Sorry for the long post, but it’s certainly not a simple matter.