He might not win, but that is no reason not to vote for him. Obama is objectively worse for the country, we have duties to the country, ergo we have to vote against Obama. The rest isn't reasoning, it is avoiding reality as unpleasant. Not a conservative trait.
If he shouldn't have been the candidate, the time to decide that was the primaries. All the candidates conservatives now say they can stand failed to get even 10% of the vote. Everyone with a real shot at it was a squish, just different regional varieties of squish. So is the president, who isn't popular enough to win again today because the country has move left, perceiving our policies of the last 7 years as failures.
That may be as unfair as you like, it is the political reality. There isn't a conservative majority in this country. Only centrist squish republicans are competitive at the national level. Heck, even at the state level, only in the most conservative states can a republican running for statewide office (as opposed to a safe uniform house district) afford to be a real conservative.
McCain may not be the best squish for the job, just the squish that won. But the real objection from the right is to the reality that only squishes need apply. They are right to dislike this, but wrong to think disliking it changes anything. It doesn't. The republican party is either going to be welcoming to the squishes, or it will be as dead as the whigs. Being a great American institution of practical people, it is going to be welcoming to squishes.
Deal with it, already.
I’m sorry, but you are simply peddling the “you have no choice” BS again.
You’re right in one respect - the primaries are the proper time to select a candidate. The race was over before my state’s caucus came around. I had no choice - except to say I could rally for McCain, Huckabee, or Paul. Having no affinity for any of them, I didn’t go to the caucus.
Not caucusing was a choice, just as not supporting is a choice. Neither is particularly savory, as there are always consequences for such choices.
But your way has consequences, too. You try to browbeat others into prostituting their principles (THEIR principles - to make the proper emphasis) based on YOUR proclivities.
McCain was too liberal eight years ago. He has gone further left since then. But you wish to pretend that I (and others like me) are the ones who have departed from “the way”?
No sale, FRiend.