[snugs]

I realise they had not chance of winning but I still could not bring myself to vote for a Labour, Lib Dem or independent if there was a Conservative Party candidate on the ballot regardless of what their stance on issues were.

I am just not genetically programmed to vote for anyone other than my party.

[Phsstpok]

I still could not bring myself to vote for a Labour, Lib Dem or independent if there was a Conservative Party candidate on the ballot regardless of what their stance on issues were.

Then you wouldn't have been in a position to vote for Winston Churchill:

In 1900, he was elected Conservative MP for Oldham but in 1904, he left the Conservative Party and joined the Liberal Party, which, he believed, better represented his economic views on free trade. From 1906 to 1908, he was a Liberal MP for northwest Manchester and from 1908 to 1922, he was MP for Dundee.

<snip> 

After his electoral defeat in 1922, Winston Churchill left the Liberal Party and became the MP for Epping in 1924 standing as a ‘constitutional anti-socialist’. Stanley Baldwin, leader of the Conservative Party, appointed him as Chancellor of the Exchequer (a post he held from 1924 to 1929) and Winston Churchill officially rejoined the Conservative Party in 1925.

Were I living in Connecticut I would have voted for Lieberman as the best choice, regardless of his party.  Had I been of voting age in NY when Daniel Patrick Moynihan was our Senator I probably would have voted for him, even though he was as liberal and partisan as just about any Democrat ever.  But he also had the benefit of being fundamentally honest and exceptionally insightful about issues like liberal welfare policies destroying black families. 

By the way, while looking up something completely unrelated I came across these great Churchill quotes:

• I refuse to remain impartial between the fire brigade and the fire.
• However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
• If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

I think these are aparticularly ppropriate to our current situation.