On the other hand, I believe that demonization of Newt Gingrich is unhelpful at best, and is just as damaging as vicious attacks on Rick Santorum. Both are now out. What's the point of “piling on” at this late date?
Criticizing a candidate is one thing, but what has happened in this election cycle goes beyond simple criticism; we're using the sort of language against fellow conservatives that ought to be reserved for liberals and worse. That has produced two different bad results: we have antagonized people who we need in order to win elections, and we have nominated the least conservative of the major candidates.
It's nothing new to say the conservative movement has three overlapping but distinct components: social conservatives, economic conservatives and national defense conservatives.
Obviously some are in all three categories — I'm an evangelical, I live and work outside Fort Leonard Wood where I moved after 9/11, originally to work as a civilian in Army Public Affairs though I now run my own business and am definitely a supporter of free enterprise. Many conservatives, however, focus primarily on one or two of those three legs of the stool, and that has led to a serious conflict within the Republican Party that in 2008 and 2012 resulted in virtually the worst possible candidate getting nominated.
If we were in a European-style parliamentary democracy with proportional representation, the Republican Party would be at least three different parties, and in some ways that might be a very good thing. We'd have at least one explicitly Christian political party (more likely, two different parties, one of evangelicals and one of Roman Catholics), we'd have a libertarian-leaning pro-business party focused mostly on economic issues, and we'd have a party focused on military issues. (Of course, the Democrats would have even more division, with separate parties for blacks, hispanics, labor interests, the far-left socialists and environmentalists, rural Southern rural voters who traditionally were more populist than conservative, and several other groups as well.)
There are some real advantages to a proportional representation system or at least a system of multimember districts such as what the West Virginia state legislature still has, and which many school boards and city councils have in a lot of states.
In multimember districts, not just the top candidate but the top two, three, or sometimes more candidates get elected. Under a full-blown parliamentary system, voters choose the political party which best represents their political views, and then the leaders of similar political parties get together in parliament to assemble a coalition to run the government with different parties getting assigned cabinet portfolios that match their major areas of concern.
In our system, however, none of that is going to happen as long as we have single-member districts. We can't get our conservative candidate elected unless we can piece together enough voters to reach either a 50 percent absolute majority or (in some states) a plurality of voters in which the leading candidate gets elected even if he or she has less than 50 percent.
I do not believe Mitt Romney would have been able to get to 50 percent of the Republican Party primary voters and caucusgoers in a one-on-one race; he won with a plurality of voters, not an absolute majority, until his money essentially forced everyone else out of the race.
However, if we're going to win most elections at the state and federal level, we need to get to 50 percent. That means people who support Gingrich, Santorum, Cain, Perry and Bachmann need to realize we all have more in common with each other than any of us have with Romney.
Antagonizing each other helps none of us and simply ensures that we'll repeat the 2008 and 2012 losses in 2016 as well.
You are exactly correct and right on. For better or worse, Romney is the candidate. That is reality. If we splinter and fight among ourselves, I can assure you we will lose this nation, not only for us, but....more importantly our children. Romney was not my choice, but he came out on top. Politiics, by nature is a dirty business, so...hard feelings, and extreme rants rule the day. That is just the way it is.
All the POTUS candidates has a fair shot at the prize through, God knows, how many debates. If we fragment, Obama wins. I am not ready to let that happen. I want Obama and the entire Democrat Party destroyed politically for a long time to come. However, the hate, venom, personal attacks by many on this site serve absolutely no useful purpose whatsoever, and...play right into the hands of Obama and his destroy America ilk.
IMHO, we all must unite, not to elect Romney, but to insure the defeat of America hater, Obama and his destructive minions.