I totally agree with “lesser of evil” calculations in politics when the lesser of evil candidate is essentially a decent man. After 8 years of Clinton, Bush was a breath of fresh air and I am so thankful he was president on 911. He was and is a decent man and a believer who aspires to do the right thing.
With some people it gets to be a judgment call at some point. I swore for two years before McCain declared for president that I would never vote for him, since I consider him to be one of the most faithless and untrustworthy individuals in politics. But in the end I did.
His behavior in politics continues to be an embarrassment.
After watching the romniacs savage Palin and the Tea Party folk for years, and watching Romney himself go AWOL all during the fight of the century over O’s assaults on the constitution (Palin led the defenders from her little Facebook page while Romney sat out and focus-grouped his supposed principles) I swore I would never vote for the guy. But in the end I did.
The Romniacs and McCainiacs like to blame the rest of us for the fact that their candidate lost. Doesn’t work on me, since despite my misgivings I did vote for them. But we did warn that McCain wouldn’t be able to inspire the base (you can’t go around attacking Christians and conservatives and then expect them to be too enthused about you). And we warned the same thing about Romney (all the worst attacks on Palin and the tea folk, when they came from Repubs, turned out to be from romniacs). You can’t expect conservatives to back someone who doesn’t back them. Romney himself seems like a decent fellow personally, but the romniacs are some of the most unlovely people in politics. And I was always struck by the fact that Romney does not fight, and does not lead. He prepares his resume and waits for the call.
The Repubs have the chance right now to make their case but they seem to have lost faith in their own principles, and lost the will and ability to defend them. Their strategy for the last couple of decades seem to be to hide their supposed principles and hope people will vote for them accidently, instead of explaining them and persuading people.
So now the party seems determined to run someone who is soft on immigration and soft on abortion and marriage. I keep saying, run an open-borders guy for president and you’ll split this party. They aren’t going to listen, of course, and if they lose they’ll blame conservatives again.
Run someone who is soft on abortion and marriage, again, and they will split this party. Blame conservatives if it makes them feel better, but with tears in my eyes, they have been warned. Don’t do it.
Rand Paul is the new, younger, John McCain, media darling, who is willing to compromise anything for likability. He just wants to win.
First of all, let me thank you from my heart, dear brother in Christ, for the most judicious, prudential assessment of Candidate Romney that I have ever read.
It has been rumored Romney doesn't want to run again, in 2016 — I gather mainly according to Ann's recent public statements. Arrrggghhhh!
Like you, I found both McCain and Romney short of the requirements of office that I most desire to see in the POTUS. But they were what the GOP had on offer at the time; so I held my nose and voted for them. They lost.
It's not like the GOP owns my heart and soul in any way. [I resigned from the GOP out of sheer disgust, in 2010.]
In recent times, my voting the GOP ballot has always entailed the recognition that, in an imperfect world, sometimes a person is confronted with the problem of discriminating the lesser from the greater Evil. Which entails one ought to "vote" for the lesser evil, if only to "buy time" to arrest the momentum of gathering events, so hopefully to buy time to develop effective countermeasures against the encroaching/enveloping objectively greater Evil....
[As an aside: The Framers likely would admonish, indeed exhort us that, in times of public disorder and danger, it is the DUTY of citizens to restore the public order, by whatever means necessary.]
I am aware that, today, in diverse Christian communities there are varying understandings of the problem of Evil as it affects human spiritual and cultural realities and what the proper human response to same ought to be.
Some confessions proclaim: If Evil is purely Evil (which surely it is), then it does not come in grades; it is always positively something to be rebuked and rejected by Christians.
Under this scenario, the problem of "the lesser of two weevils" never can arise. Christians have the mandate to "vote down" Evil in any form it appears, on every occasion — even if one has to stay home on election day to do it — and all will be well with one's soul.
To me, it is completely irrational not to mention unprudential to equate all instantiations of Evil as "the same." Both a shop-lifter (who pilfered some clothing) and the Nazi guard at Auschwitz (who turned on the gas to exterminate Jews and other "undesirables") have committed acts of objective Evil. But could such disparate acts of evil ever be "equilibrated?"
I have heard that the margin of victory for Obama in the last go-round was explicable on the basis that so many formerly-GOP voters stayed home on Election Day.
Whatever. In his second term, Obama is reaping the whirlwind of Evil, and subjecting the American public — notice, mainly the American middle class so far, who are disproportionately of Caucasian heritage and Christian confession — as the first sacrificial victims to it....
Which explains why, last time out, for me, defeating Obama was Job #1.
This is not a presidential election year. So, for me, this time out, Job #1 is defeating Harry Reid — Obama's most trusted ally (after only Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett), enabler, correspondent, codependent, and facilitator of the total destruction of the U.S. Constitution.
There is no way to directly defeat Harry Reid this time out. The only way to get rid of his pernicious influence and effect is to elect a Republican Senate Majority.
In all probability, I'll be "holding my nose"*** again in the 2016 Presidential election. The GOP have become so suckered into playing futile political games with the Left Progressives that they seem unable to articulate a coherent message to the American people.
They have nothing to say, no values to propose or defend. They just want to "win" at the game of tit-for-tat — with a corrupt opposition, according to this very opposition's own terms of divide-and-conquer — which they seem to accept as "the new rules" governing political discourse which inexorably leads to the desired ideological/political "transformational change"....
[I.e., these GOP idiots seem to agree that when it comes to engaging in political dispute with an implacable enemy of everything they cherish and believe in, drawing cards for one's hand from a "stacked deck" dealt by a crooked dealer actually can work out well for their electoral success....]
At this point, I am simply filled with disgust....
[BTW, on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace of three weeks ago (IIRC), Dr. Benjamin Carson was interviewed on some timely point or other.
Inevitably, the subject turned to Dr. Carson's presidential ambitions for 2016, if any. Dr. Carson's reply thoroughly startled me. He said maybe there wouldn't even be a presidential election in 2016. Whereupon, Wallace inquired: Why do you think there wouldn't be a presidential election in 2016? To which Carson replied: "Because America might well be in a state of anarchy by then."]
At which point, total "Silence on the Set": Wallace dropped the subject like a hot potato: There was zero follow-up, then or now. I have not heard a word since about what Carson said in that Fox News interview, in any subsequent venue, ever.
This election may be our last chance to save our Constitution and our country. Not by fixing all problems instantly, perfectly; but for the buying of time needed to try to build "a more perfect Union," in liberty and justice for all God's children alike.
Thank you ever so much, dear marron, for your beautiful essay/post!
***None of the potential GOP candidate names in circulation right now has any appeal to me whatsoever. The two people I really, really like probably don't have a snowball's chance in Hell of being nominated, let alone elected president. If the GOP runs Romney again, I will be a seriously unhappy camper.... If they nominate Bush III, I would probably end up in total despair.... FWIW
But whoever the chosen one ends up being, I'll probably vote for him/her — if only as the "lesser evil."