[buwaya]

Nothing can be done without power, and there is no power without politics.

There just isn’t any way of getting to power through your idea of purity. You can’t save anyone from socialism that way.

[Chunga]

There just isn’t any way of getting to power through your idea of purity. You can’t save anyone from socialism that way.

This is true. Ronald Reagan agreed.

[IAintGotNoMoney]

buwaya and Chunga, you guys are 100% correct and one of you should start a thread explaining that conservatives (no matter what % of purity we are) need to stick together or there won't be a nation left to be concerned about.

I was no huge fan of McCain, but I backed him. Simply because I knew the alternative (which we now have) was so much worse. I live in the northeast (MA) and I know how bad things can and will get if progressives (the looniest of the liberals) manage to gain a majority. At this point we not only need to help the RINOS - we need to persuade the DINOs the value of conservative principles and move them to the right. That won't happen if the conservative movement appears to be frothing at the mouth lunatics demanding 100% purity of opinions.

I have to believe that those arguing for only the purist of the pure to be elected are either living in very red areas of the country (where there are viable GOP candidates and you can choose the most conservative) or they're KOS kiddies trying to stoke infighting between conservatives.

Let the liberals attack each other. We don't do that and should never do that.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

You're delusional. Tell the doc to up your meds.
Having a majority of Republicans means squat if half of the members vote with the Dems.
I guess you pine for the good old days when Dems held Congress for 40 years and the GOP were nothing more than their pets. Typical battered-wife conservative.

[IronJack]

Your “power through politics” reeks of Machiavelli more than Burke. The drive for political “power” (which is only an illusion anyway) devolves as much to your enemy’s favor as to your own. It is little more than a carrot dangling on a stick.

The goal should not be to accommodate quislings like Olympia Snowe, because “better the devil you know.”. It should be to find someone BETTER. There has to be a reason the people of Maine keep electing this duplicitous witch. If conservatives can run a candidate who serves their needs better by embracing conservative doctrine, then they’ll elect him. And he will serve the conservative ideology far more loyally than Snowe and her ilk.

Your approach to power politics just means an enervated, amoral marriage of convenience, not a principled move toward the best society men can create. It means tolerating and even promoting whatever mediocrity pervades the salon on any given day.

This isn’t a negotiation. This is war. To compromise is to die.