In 1992, Perot got into the race between HW Bush and Bill Clinton. Even though I was disgusted with HW and his betraying conservative principle with moderate "compassion," I was even madder at the folks who voted for Perot. That damned Clinton won just the same -- on a 43% plurality!
In retrospect, I have concluded that indeed, I and other conservatives owe a debt of gratitude to those Perot voters because Clinton, opposed by a full 57% of voters, entered office with a "vote" (ha ha!) of NO CONFIDENCE. Well over half of Americans rejected Clinton's lies and rejected Clinton himself. In spite of a sycophantic MSM, two years later Clinton got his ass creamed in the mid-terms and our blessed Republican Revolution happened and did much good for our country.
Would that Republican Revolution have happened if Clinton had won with a majority of Americans behind him? Would that Republican Revolution have happened if HW had been re-elected?
I doubt it.
The fact is that, unless a miracle happens, regardless of how we vote we WILL have as our next president a leftist, authoritarian, amoral statist. PERIOD.
Conservatives in Congress are the ones who must truly be doing the hard work to move this country right and FIGHT AGAINST the creeping stranglehold of statism in cap-and-trade global warming (far and away THE most crucial non-social issue endangering us), nationalized health care, the gay agenda, activist judges, and taxpayer-funded on-demand abortion.
They, NOT the president, are our true hope for turning this country right.
Romney says he would overturn Obamacare (although he is figuratively and historically its "father"), and he says he has reformed on abortion.
In the meantime, he is certainly 100 percent ON BOARD with the "green" agenda whose inevitable mission is to control both energy and food production and consumption (for the health of the planet, don't you know!).
That love of "Going Green" and Romney's record (with the internet it's easy to do independent research in news stories) indicates that he has all the arrogance of a liberal, which means that probabilities are nearly certain that he regards conservatives with a condescension akin to thinking of them as a cross between willful children and neanderthals, as liberals do.
We already know what Obama is, although many forget that he is fallible, opposed, and even loathed by an ever growing number of Americans. Odds are very high that the next Congress will be a Republican one, with lots of new coservatives and fewer moderates. Regardless of how fearful Obama appears, he is a scarecrow and that Congress will have the power to fight and dominate him. He is NOT Oz the Omnipotent -- he's a narcissist that more and more people are finding despicable.
Conservatives have ONE JOB in Congress, and that is to halt the liberal agenda.
They will be fighting against the presidential administration's advance of that agenda no matter whether Obama or Romney wins. So the best, the ONLY, way I can use my vote in the presidential race to HELP conservatives in that battle is to vote official, on-the-ballot third party. I know that the candidate I vote for will lose (unless there's a miracle, and they DO happen!), but I also know my vote WILL be tallied in the final count.
If enough folks are disgusted with both Obama AND Romney, as it certainly appears vast numbers ARE, and IF THEY USE THEIR VOTE, they can create a scenario where the the next president wins on a plurality even worse than Clinton's. Ideally, I'd like to see enough people reject Obama, and enough people reject Romney, and instead vote FOR someone else, that the victor gets in on as low a plurality as possible. If the winner got in on a 34% plurality, that would mean 64% of Americans, two out of three who voted, thought he stunk.
And that would put the next president on the defensive, make him weak, and increase the political ammunition of his enemies both within his own party AND in the opposition party.
Whether it's Obama or Romney, the next president WILL have and push a liberal agenda. Our conservatives in Congress will have a much better chance of stopping that agenda if that president is someone soundly and publicly rejected by the majority of We The People.