All right, let's assume for the sake of argument that I'm thinking small. My initial question still stands. Why aren't you helping? The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. I've taken mine. Come on and take yours. If my goldfish gets eaten by the sharks, at least I die free.
Wrong again.
I haven't been wrong yet. The GOP-E has told you that you have to support Romney -- and that's exactly what you're doing. You may as well own it.
I voted for Gingrich.
I caucused for Santorum. And I won't vote for who the GOP-E tells me I must support because I won't support an abortionist, I won't support a gun-grabber, I won't support a statist and I won't support a liberal. I'm accountable to God for my vote and that's that.
Now, the choice comes down to two "most-viable" candidates: Obama & whoever the GOP runs. You want me to vote for someone other than the GOP candidate? Fine. Give me someone more viable than the GOP candidate and I will *DEFINITELY* vote for him. You have until Nov. 6th, 2012 when I walk into that voting booth to to get it done. Take your time.
No. YOUR choice comes down to two 'most viable' candidates. My choice still comes down to the entire remaining field. And again ... you want me to give you someone. Why will you not seek someone out for yourself? Educate yourself. Learn about Virgil Goode or Tom Hoefling or someone else, instead of tying your conservatism into a knot over Mitt Romney.
The converse is also true. You can, if you wish, try to convince me why I should agree with you and support Mitt Romney. However, "he's less statist" ain't gonna cut it.
I'm not beholden to the GOP
Kinda looks like it from where I stand. Let's build a real party. What do you say?
I'm beholden to whoever stands the best chance of beating Obama and I don't care who that is. If you don't feel the same, then I presume you are either desperate for some way to feel good about yourself (country be damned) and/or you actually prefer Obama for whatever reason. Knowingly voting for someone who you know darn well doesn't stand a snowball's chance is an act of futility.
Holy False Dichotomy, Batman! The ultimate ABO fall-back argument! As a conservative, I won't vote for a leftist so, hey, I must REALLY support Obama!
It's quite interesting how you people feel you can define my vote for a third party candidate as what it's not -- somehow a vote for someone else -- but you won't define your own vote for Romney as what it actually is -- a vote for Mitt Romney. Why won't you own your vote? Your slap at my patriotism aside, I love my country enough to tell my political party when it's wrong, because my country is more important than my political party. I hope yours is too.
They can, but name the last time a principled group of conservatives displaced the GOP's presidential candidate *after* the nominating convention? You can't. Local, State and US Congress races? Oh, heck yes! Presidential races? I admire your optimism, but wishful thinking won't get you anywhere and we lack the leverage to force it. Go fish.
Obviously, it's never happened in a Presidential contest. Am I happy about that? No. Does it mean I surrender? Absolutely not.
Now ask yourself how leverage is generated. Sitting back and accepting Romney not only fails to generate leverage for the right, it gives HIM leverage against US. How's that going to work in the long run?
If the majority of likely voter polling indicates the town-drunk leads all others opposing Obama, then that's who I vote for. Don't like the town-drunk? Then get your guy out in front.
I'm trying. You seem to be voting for the town drunk. But I notice you skipped past my question about how voting for the town drunk advances conservatism. That's because you know good and well that a vote for the town drunk, or a vote for Mitt Romney, won't do it. Had you thought otherwise you wouldn't have supported Newt, you'd have supported Romney from the start. And we both know it.
I don't care *who* it is as long as Obama is gone.
Absolutely valid. I have to be fair and grant that. Obama is an utter menace. But I don't feel replacing him with Romney is an option that will prove acceptable to save our Republic. I will vote for the person who I feel IS an acceptable choice. That is my right as a citizen.
We have three or four SCOTUS justices in their 80's. Given those appointments are for *LIFE* and we already know Obama favors lib/prog/lesbian/whatever Justices (Kagen & Sotomayor), I won't vote in any way that gives any statistical advantage to Obama that might lead to him picking one or more replacement justices next term. You can give him all the advantage you like, but don't even bother trying to sell me an infeasible long-shot.
Had a good look at Romney's judicial appointment record? You're whistling past the graveyard.
For the nth time, I'm voting for whoever stands the best chance of beating Obama at this point, whoever that may be. Currently that's the GOP candidate. Don't foolishly presume that indicates I support the GOP. If you get your candidate ahead of the GOP candidate, I'll switch in a heartbeat, GOP be damned. It is just that simple.
If you help that candidate, maybe he can get ahead. If you don't, your Declaration of Independence is just talk. Either way, if you want to advance conservatism, you're going to have to make a move. You can do it. You'll have to do it. I can't do it for you.
What? A moment ago, you were all gung-ho on the miraculous power of a "a principled group of conservatives" doing the impossible. Get them together and make it known wide and far that we are seeking a primary challenger for the next election. We'll have 4 years - *YEARS* - to get our act together and apply whatever pressure we can bear. Right now we only have 4 months. You couldn't even get conservatives to agree on a candidate in four months. That's why the most viable candidate is the only sane option.
And I still am. But if you think conservative opposition within the Republican Party -- which is the context in which I was speaking, and which you snipped right out of that reply -- could defeat a President Romney in 2016 you'd probably want to take another look at your dictionary definition of 'sanity'. It wouldn't happen within the framework of the Republican Party, but I suspect you know that. We'd need a conservative party, which is the entire point of my initial reply to you. In the meantime, though, I guess we'll see you in four years. Better late than never.
Look, I don't care to hear about your fantasy candidate. I don't care to hear the same old retreaded complaints about Romney - you're preaching to the choir.
You're voting for the man, not me. I'm choppin', but no chips are flyin'. If I really am 'preaching to the choir', why won't you sing? You're good at telling us you dislike Romney and you aren't beholden to the GOP. I ask you to prove it.
All I want to hear about is a specific candidate and how we convince all the needed voting blocs to pull the lever for that guy over Obama. Then we need to see some polling of likely voters indicating that they are buying what we are selling. I don't care if that's the GOP candidate, some stealth candidate or even the town drunk. You get him in the lead -- I vote for him. Plain & simple.
Really, it doesn't matter which candidate I name -- because you won't do anything until I do your work for you and 'get him in the lead'. Until you're willing to help, your claim about being willing to desert the GOP is just talk, and we know how much that costs.
For the record, I love the CP's platform with only a couple of exceptions in the area of defense, and I find Virgil Goode has more principle in his little finger than Mitt Romney has in his entire body. I've talked with Tom Hoefling, who I admire as a man of principle and who is an outstanding social conservative. Those are my two. Yours is Mitt Romney.
Look, despite our difference I don't fault you a scrap for what you're doing. I'm just challenging you to use what are clearly considerable powers of speech and communication to think outside the GOP's box. You can do it.
Bravo! Epic conservative apologetics (in the classic sense).
Really, it doesn't matter which candidate I name -- because you won't do anything until I do your work for you and 'get him in the lead'"You" is all the folks who think you can somehow miraculously get a candidate out in front of the GOP candidate within the next four months. You can't possibly believe that is within the realm of possibility, even if you had the *fervent* encouragement, support and eager, all-in assistance of every freeper past & present. If you believe that is possible, you are deluded and irrational. Even if *I* were to devote myself 24/7 until Nov 6th, we would come up lacking. We (conservatives) are outnumbered. We need to change that, but it will take longer than the next 4 months to get it done. It will likely take a few generations. So to be clear, I'm in agreement with you about what we'd like to see happen, but I disagree that it can be done in the next four months.
Most urgent priority: Vote Obama out of office by giving maximum advantage to the candidate with the best odds of doing it. If you don't think that's the GOP candidate, then tell me who else leads among likely voters.
Now, presuming you possess functioning sense of logic and reason: barring some completely unexpected miracle or leading candidate melt-down on live tv, there are only two viable candidates: The Dem candidate and the GOP candidate. There is no chance for a write-in. There is no chance for a third-party candidate. You know that as well as I do. I don't like it, but that is the reality everyone has to live in.
We could ask, "Do we want a constitutional-conservative elected as President in 2012? Of course we do. The question then becomes, "How do we do that, given we don't have a candidate we (conservatives) can all agree on *AND* given that the GOP has a candidate way out in front among likely voters?" The question is ridiculous on it's face at this point, four months before the election. We already had our chance in the primaries and blew it, primarily (I think) because we lacked a unifying conservative candidate. Even if we had the numbers this time, we (conservatives) would have still messed it up by squabbling over minutia and would have been split a dozen different ways. We proved that over and over and over during the primaries.
So, the only question remaining at this point, four months before the election, is: "Do you want Obama to win or lose?"
Going out on a limb and presuming you want Obama to lose, what do you think a reasonable and prudent course of action would be to vote Obama out (because that's the only way it's going to happen):
Option 1: Sing the blues about the crap candidate we've been stuck with by all the moderates, centrists, RINOs, independants and right-leaning dems? Throw a fit and not vote? Vote for (or write-in) some non-viable candidate? Or my favorite lame-brain plan: do something to try to "Teach the GOP a lesson" (like they give a rat's butt what we think)? or some other protest action...
Option 2: Use the remaining four months to try and drag down the current leader because we don't like him and were out-voted in the primaries by non-conservatives and replace him with some long shot candidate using the outnumbered forces of Free Republic / conservatives / Tea-Partiers? Good luck with that. If we *COULD* do that, Romney would not be the leading candidate right now and we wouldn't be having this discussion. You can't even get the F.R. crowd to agree on who that candidate would be. Ergo, "pipe-dream".
Option 3: Vote for whatever candidate leads against Obama among likely voters?
I'm going for Option 3. You do whatever you like. I lack the capability (or even the desire at this point) to tell you what you should or shouldn't do. I only defend my choice as the most rational, logical and *feasible* course of action. And yes, you could not be more wrong about me, but if it helps you feel better by accusing me of being a GOP puppet or whatever, more power to you. Like I've clearly stated consistently, over and over, I am only beholden to whoever stands the best chance of defeating Obama, whoever that is. Getting Obama out of office is my sole focus at this point. After that is done, the fight continues in whatever direction you like. But if Obama wins, by the time he's done ignoring congress, stacking SCOTUS with lib-progs, czaring/regulating to skirt the legislative process, etc. etc. etc... I'm not sure what all will be left that would be worth fighting for in *MY* remaining lifetime. It would probably be a battle for my great or great-great grandchildren after Obama's lifetime SCOTUS appointments retired/died.