"So that brings up the 800 pound gorilla in the room. If you nominate what you consider the 'great selector' and in the election he does the same or worse than McCain/Palin 2008 ( 173 electoral votes ) or Romney/Ryan 2012 ( 206 ) then you not only get to select ZERO Supreme Court Justices..."
Not sure what you're getting at here?
By great selector I mean what our grandstanding purist friends are speaking of, nominating Ted Cruz because he is better at picking Justices.
800 pound gorilla in the room is metaphor for a gigantic issue everyone either cannot see or wants to ignore.
So I meant that nominating a great selector of Supreme Court Justices is an awesome thing but only if he wins ... however what if that candidate does the same or worse than McCain/Palin ( losing 365-173 ) and Romney/Ryan ( losing 332-206 ), when you need 270 electoral votes to win, but our "red" states only supply 180.
So that paragraph was merely a reinstatement of the earlier one you complimented ( thanks ). I'm just cutting to the case here. We cannot run our purist playbook any longer on this office. The purple states, and the "blue" states are not interested. And if we ignore that new paradigm we lose again. Then we get zero Justices as before and this will be fatal this time around because the Heller decision interpreting the Second Amendment as an individual right to bear firearms was a 5-4 decision. We are at the end of game with one play left - win this damn thing for once and get the next set of Justices and buy some time on the game clock.
We cannot run our purist playbook any longer on this office. The purple states, and the "blue" states are not interested....
Disagree here. The blue and purple states haven't had to consider an actual conservative message in the voting booth since 1984. No one under the age of 50 has had an honest-to-goodness conservative Presidential candidate try to win them over. The last time it happened, he won in a landslide. Is the country different today? Absolutely. That does not mean a conservative message is a loser in blue and purple states though.
I am in the minority (on this site at least). I think Trump or Cruz would make excellent Presidents and each has a different path to victory but victory would be well within either's grasp. I also think the animosity between supporters is BS. "If I like him I have to hate the other guy" is like arguing sports in a bar. This isn't sports where Yankee fans hate the Red Sox and vice versa. You can support both up until it's time to choose in the primary.