Silly me -- I assumed you'd read all the posts on this thread, and not just the ones responding to you; if you had, you'd have seen that I've answered your question before in some detail.
The conservative cause would be advanced best if Obama squeaked in by a weak plurality, the lower the plurality, the better: Remember when Clinton got in on 43% (as in, 57% of votes cast were OPPOSED to him), and what happened to him the next mid-term? I doubt the Republican Revolution would have happened had Clinton won with 53%.
A vote FOR Obama would count to making his plurality higher, therefore it is logical to WITHHOLD my vote from him. It's logical to withhold my vote from Romney because he HAS A SOLID, DOCUMENTED RECORD of promoting and supporting all the things I have been voting Republican all these years to OPPOSE. Voting for Romney is plainly as nuts as voting for Obama.
I refuse to cast my vote FOR either Obama or Romney as voting for one is as nuts as voting for the other. But my vote, like every American's, is precious. I will USE IT the best way I can. And that is to vote third party, even if it's for a Pat Paulsen candidate, for the express purpose of using my vote to push whichever statist/socialist wins, Obama or Romney, to as anemic a number as possible, and hope that Obama is the squeaks in on, ideally, as low as 34%. That would mean 66% of Americans who voted, voted to OPPOSE Obama, and equally important and powerful, it would mean that registered Republicans were conservative and BRAVE enough to tell the GOP that Romney was a bridge too far, which would HUGELY empower and embolden conservatism within the GOP, and devastate liberalism in the GOP.
The election of conservatives is the only thing that's going to save America. THAT is the bottom line.
Frankly, a Romney win poses a much greater threat to conservatism than an Obama win. It's a gamble either way, but the greater odds in favor of conservatism lie in rejecting Romney than in allowing Abject Fear of Obama to bully conservative Republicans into voting for a politician who HAS A DOCUMENTED RECORD of doing all the things conservative Republicans oppose.
Very well stated. You are right, most of those who will support Romney are not doing it because of what he stands for (which is nothing) but because of a Fear of Obama. Romney will destroy the conservative movement if he is elected. We have more to fear from a Romney victory than an Obama plurality win. We must fight through the convention and if we lose there and Romney gets the nomination, then we must rally around a conservative 3rd party.
Frankly if Ross Perot had run against Obama and Romney instead of Bush and Clinton, he might have won the election.
A vote for Romney is a vote for the Status Quo. No Hope. No Change. Just a rudderless ship of state being battered by the winds of popular opinion.