[Gandalf_The_Gray]

I intend to vote for the most conservative amongst them. In this case it will probably be Virgil Goode. You see I’m a conservative, not a republican. If the gop wishes to gain my support or my vote it can do so very easily: by running conservative political candidates. The gop chose not to do so this time, so I won’t support their ticket.

I can understand your position but please explain why voting for a >10% candidate makes any sense. Your pick will have absolutely no chance of winning so why even bother, it is the same as not voting at all. It may be a moral victory but it will leave us all with four more years of Obama! It's time to think strategically. To even be in this race you need to narrow your picks to the top two, no-one else has a chance of doing anything except becoming a 'spoiler' in a close race.

Regards,
GtG

[RKBA Democrat]

A polite question, so I’ll be happy to answer as politely as I can.

I don’t share your unstated premise that a completely unrestrained willard in office would be all that much better than a somewhat restrained hussein. As a matter of fact in the long run willard may be worse. Let me give you an example. Just today willard was talking about repealing and REPLACING obamacare. Not just repealing. It makes you wonder...just what is the architect of romneycare planning to replace it with? Whatever it is, his replacement plan will not have any significant opposition from the gop.

One comment I see a lot on FR is that conservative will “hold willards feet to the fire.” Really? Precisely who will be doing that? John boehner? Mitch mcconnell?

And in the long term having willard as President will make it that much harder to elect actual conservatives in the future. The gop-e will see no reason to elect them and for good or bad, willard will be associated with conservatism. We’ve already seen how much damage the not conservative GW Bush did with things like TARP. And willard on his better days isn’t even as conservative as GW Bush was. Conservatives already have a tough sell in a country where less than 50% of the populace pays income taxes. And we want willard to be the de facto spokesman for conservatism?

I realize that its a bitter pill to swallow, but conservatives have already lost the presidential election. In my view we lost it the day willard effectively won the nom. Bitter as that may be, it is somewhat liberating as it does allow you to pick someone whose political views are similar to your own. So I’ll vote my values even if I realize that my candidate has little chance of winning.

I absolutely agree that we should think strategically. My strategy is to see conservatism win in the long run.