tomdavis wrote:In 1980 we had 5 choices.
1. Vote for Reagan
2. Vote for Carter
3. Vote 3rd party for Anderson which was a vote for Carter
4. Write in a vote which was a vote for Carter
5. Refuse to vote which was a vote for Carter
Jump to 2012 and we had the same choices, just with other names. The difference is the republicans have done a crummy job for a while. As a result a bunch of people put themselves ahead of the good of the nation and refuse to vote or write in votes to make themselves feel good rather than to vote against the greatest evil in the history of our nation. They'd probably vote for Hitler in their roundabout way because they're going to teach those republicans a lesson and show them for running a poor choice of a candidate. It's just too bad we all have to suffer due to their tantrum.
Could not agree more!!! We have to get over something we do not like about the "conservative" candidate as we absolutely do not want the other one. We also have to get our friends who are giving up and do not plan to vote to get out there and vote. Their vote is their shot for freedom. To not vote is to join the other side.
Sorry...... I was a huge proponent of this view all the way through this past election, but no more. I even vociferously supported that view on these very pages. But that has changed. I
MIGHT, maybe even
PROBABLY vote for the republican candidate in 2016, but I rejected membership in the party after the 2012 election, and I quite deliberately do not want the Republican Party to ever again
assume that it can count on my vote.
I love George W. Bush, the man, and I voted for him twice, but he turned out not to be THAT conservative. And if John McCain and Mitt Romney are the best that the republican party can do, then I'm just not going to be all that enthusiastic about the party any longer. But it gets even worse.... The Tea Party movement brought a badly needed breath of grass-roots fresh air and enthusiasm to the party, and what happens? The party leadership devotes more energy to try and destroy the Tea Party than it does to trying to reform the way business is done in DC. Rice bowl politics at its finest. Republicans DO eat their own. I have more personal honor than that, and I WONT be a part of implicitly supporting that kind of crapulent skulduggery by just going along with it.
I take the same view today about politics as I do about my religious faith. Without going into the details of apologetics, in my view, I have a part to play in hastening Jesus's return through prayer, ministry, worship, and witnessing to whomever is willing to have that conversation with me, without being obnoxious about it. But the GOAL is massive, revolutionary, even radical spiritual change. Well, that's what we need politically in this country. We need massive, revolutionary, radical change. It IS true that if democrats win the white house again, they will do terrible damage to the constitution and the country. In my view, that will
hasten the day when The People finally shout "ENOUGH!!!" and collectively decide to clean out the attic. The current republican leadership are not going to loosen their grip on the party's reins. If they win, they've ALREADY demonstrated that they are destructive of any movement within the party to change the party's direction toward liberty and accountability.
I am tired of holding my nose and voting for the lesser of two bad choices. When was the last time that the Republican Party gave us a candidate that we could get behind with the same fervor that democrats got behind Obama?
The ideals of classical liberalism (translation for republicans: Goldwater republicanism) are superior ideals, but republicans lack a great communicator whose simple communicating brilliance could prevail in the face of a hostile news media. Reagan was the last such one. In the intervening years, the media have gotten more overtly hostile to republicans than ever before. In Reagan's time, Dan Rather would have NEVER attempted what he did to George Bush. And like I said, Bush wasn't
that conservative. Can you imagine what they'll try to do to a maverick like Rand Paul, who has resisted their blandishments to date? In an era of instant communication and nearly universal connectedness to the flow of information.....much of which is still under the sway and control of the legacy media....
CAN a republican communicator even prevail any longer? Reagan didn't have to deal with an unfiltered internet, where any kind of viscous calumny can spread like a virus...faster than it can be dampened by anything like professional integrity in the newsroom...and by the time the truth is out, the damage has been done. And democrats, even those who pretend to some kind of higher integrity and ideals—Dan Rather being a fine example—are all too willing to participate in it.
The end result is that the Republican Party ends nominating the candidate that the democrat media approves of.......just so that same media can gleefully participate in knocking him/her down as soon as he/she goes up against the media's democrat favorite.
The Republican Party has to stop
caring what the media thinks, and start nominating candidates who give voters a CLEAR choice between two vastly different ways of looking at the world. That is the ONLY way that the party can overcome the democrat tactic of making people feel good about their victimhood and grievances.
If I automatically give my support to the party, even when the leadership deliberately goes out of its way to destroy that part of the party that represents ME and MY interests, then exactly how are they a "lesser evil" to ME? They are NO different than Dan Rather!
Give me something to vote FOR, not something to vote AGAINST. If the party cannot do that, then the best they will ever get from me is a very qualified MAYBE I'll vote for their candidate....or maybe not. If "maybe not" hastens a badly needed housecleaning, then what's my motivation to support the republican nominee? I'd honestly like to know.
If 45% of the voters turn out for the democrat, and 0% turn out for the republican, the democrat will win the election, and we'll be no worse off than we are today, but the Republican Party will be forced to concede that it BADLY needs a general housecleaning at the top. That's what it will take to save the party. Otherwise, it will continue to decline, due to its own corruption at the top and it's tone-deafness to its grass-roots, and we'll witness a reprise of the demise of the Whigs.
The dems are hopeless. They are in thrall to the crypto-commies in their midst. They are beyond recovery. They have found the magic formula: bread and circuses, and eat the rich (despite the fact that their donors are among the richest in the nation). The Republican Party is driving away its own membership, and it needs to either change, or die and get out of the way of something better.
