[Bob J]

If I toss away my vote on a hand-picked RINO, what tool will I still have to prevent the future hand-picking of RINOs?

Incrementalism. Anyone who thinks we could go from Davis to Tancredo in one election in CA is a fool. By electing Riordan (BTW - I voted for Simon) we put someone in place who is at that time palatable to the electorate and will give us some of what we want. If he is popular and does a good job, it softens and the public image of republicans and improves the chances of electing a more conservative candidate next time around. By demanding everything you want all at one time, you will be perceived as extremist and insure that your candidate will lose, leaving a much less desireable person and party in power. It took 40 years for CA to get where it is today and it will probably take 20 to get us out of it. There are no silver bullets and those that believe there are are better left alone, pontificating about their righteousness and away from the planning sessions.

Even now, the "realists" who sought to annoint Dick Riordan thump their chests and say "see, we were right." Yet, if he'd been nominated and elected (hypothetically), we'd see a boom cycle of RINO annointings.

Assumes facts not in evidence. Please explain how one follows the other.

Tell a politician your vote is his entitlement, and he'll step on your face to get to a swing voter.

They'll do that anyway. The only way to change the outcome is to move the political spectrum to the right. When the politician moves to the electoral middle to get votes, he's right where you want him.

[Sabertooth]

Incrementalism.

No problem with that, but packaging a slower move to more government power as though it is GOP incrementalism is disingenuous, and we see this frequently. An incremental retreat by our side is an incremental advance for the opposition.

By electing Riordan (BTW - I voted for Simon)

I voted for Simon to block Riordan, but we were given those two options because of the Bush family tradition of settling political scores against Bill Jones, who had the temerity to support McCain in the 2000 primary. He was the only statewide GOP office holder and would have been the strongest candidate against the weakened Davis, but Bush and Rove brought their usual tin ear to California politics and botched it, but good.

I find it ironic when I hear '92 Perot voters (I wasn't one) blamed as short-sighted, while the Bushes get passes for failed strategeries.

Riordan was unacceptable under any circumstances. He's endorsed Democrats against Republicans, and contributed to their campaigns... what party loyalty should he command? He's pro-homosexual, pro-Illegal, and anti-gun. We don't need two parties like that, and Riordan's long term damage to the California and national GOP would have been far worse than anything Davis has done to this State. Davis will ultimately be the Bill Clinton of California, helping to rejuvenate the Republican Party.

There are no silver bullets and those that believe there are are better left alone, pontificating about their righteousness and away from the planning sessions.

Fine, so long as the RNC-type "realists" with losing strategies are shown the same door.

When the politician moves to the electoral middle to get votes, he's right where you want him.

When politicians "move to the middle," what they're actually doing is allocating their resources to win the votes they perceive are up for grabs. To get them where we want them, which is moving toward us, the last thing we should do is tell them that our votes can be taken for granted.