[TAdams8591]

"My judgment is that I support the most conservative candidates and eschew the phonies."

The people YOU deem to be phony. How well's that workin' for ya? : )

Supporting candidates who can't win, IS abandoning your principles.

I support candidates holding principles closest to my own who CAN win. THAT is supporting and sticking by my principles.

THAT is working to insure that my principles win over principles of the other party's candidates which are diametrically opposed to my own.

[Antoninus]

The people YOU deem to be phony. How well's that workin' for ya? : )

Workin' fine. Politics isn't everything in life. Even when Clinton was in office, I managed to graduate from college, get a job, get back to the Church, meet my wife, and get married. Now I'm raising and homeschooling five kids who will someday, hopefully, help turn this country around. Instilling conservative principles in them is a big part of that. Helping to elect flim-flam artists like Mitt Romney is not.

Supporting candidates who can't win, IS abandoning your principles.

If that's the case, you shouldn't support Flip. Even if he manages to win the nomination somehow, he's dog-meat in the general.