You don't get it, do you?
The object is stopping socialism COMPLETELY in its tracks.
When you support so-called "moderate" Republicans, you are still advancing socialism because they compromise with the Dems and give them cover. Democrats are too chicken to pass their socialist agenda on their own - THAT IS WHY THEY NEEDED REPUBLICANS TO PASS OBAMACARE AND TO PASS PORKULUS.
Better a weathervane that gives us the committees than an active opponent that will deny us the committees.
More beltway thinking crapola.
Discredits “beliefs” ? Why do we care about “beliefs” ? All we care about is results.
How are you going to get results if you don't believe in, much less fight for, your beliefs? Snowe didn't even have the guts to shave a few billion off of the porkulus bill even though she and Collins were in a prime negotiating position to do so. I would have forgave her vote if she would have offered to the Dems in exchange for hard matching spending cuts in government programs. That would have been the real "moderate" position but she didn't even do that.
I don’t care if Snowe believes in little green men from Mars, as long as she votes our way 50% of the time and gives us control.
You are completely missing the point! She is still advancing socialism by accepting the left's terns. That 50% in which she votes with the Rats are off-setting her votes with Republicans.
The other 50% we have the option of blocking her silliness through procedure or by exploiting the 50%-ers on the other side.
She voted against the Bush tax cuts at a time when the GOP had the majority. Where were those magical "procedural" rules then?
“The object is stopping socialism COMPLETELY in its tracks.”
And this will happen as the result of enforcing purity in the ranks of its opponents ? I think not. I think rather you will merely give the socialists everything they want. Now, there is an argument that this will cause such a disaster that the socialists will be so discredited that evrything will be then restored by a resurgent, purified conservative party. This scenario is a fantasy.
“More beltway thinking crapola.”
Indeed. It is political thinking as it happens in the real world, not some never-never land.
“How are you going to get results if you don’t believe in, much less fight for, your beliefs?”
By all means believe in things and fight for them. Just don’t do a Charge of the Light Brigade maneuver (like purging the impure) just because. Maneuver, exploit, take strategic positions, choose your ground, use your allies effectively even if you don’t trust them, etc.
“She is still advancing socialism by accepting the left’s terns. “
Certainly. She is also impeding them the remaider of the time. If she were to be replaced by a genuine Democrat we would lose that 50% benefit. Since there is no prospect of replacing her with a better Republican, retaining her is a net benefit. The Democrats used this logic in 2006 and 2008 in their Congressional candidate selection btw. It worked very well for them. There are Democrat/Leftist discussion groups like this where they bitterly complain about “Blue Dogs” in the same way, and being idiots by definition, they misunderstand the DNC strategy. One would expect better from FR.
“She voted against the Bush tax cuts at a time when the GOP had the majority. “
And we got tax cut bills out of the committees, didn’t we ? Procedures worked very well then, didn’t they ?
And she was outvoted then, wasn’t she ? By some other 50%-ers also besides the real conservatives ?