But no matter how you or I or anyone else rationalizes it, the hard material reality is that when you vote for a functional Democrat, which Romney was on FIVE MAJOR ISSUES as his documented record confirmed, then you vote FOR making leftism more powerful in both parties.
Oh, I used to do what you do and deny it and justify it and rationalize it. Things kept getting worse and worse. Then I finally woke up and understood Einstein's definition of insanity, which obviously YOU have yet to fathom.
It's ironic and sad because YOU are the one short-circuiting reality, INTENDING to choose the "lesser evil" but ACTING to move the whole thing dramatically leftward.
Yardstick, it's time for well-meaning folks you to wake the hell up and be ACCOUNTABLE FOR WHAT YOU VOTE FOR.
You're trying to hold me and others accountable for what happened because Obama won.
I am and will only BE accountable for what happens if my guy wins. You are and will only be accountable for what happens if your guy wins. If your guys is evil, even if it is "lesser" (ha ha, like water that is less wet than that water over there), then YOU are to blame, YOU are accountable, YOU are responsible for the evil YOU voted FOR. BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR WHAT YOU VOTE FOR and stop with trying to hold others accountable for what happens when your guy loses.
Finny, you did the sensible thing all those years. You should keep doing it.
Our predicament isn’t the result of conservatives not sitting out enough elections. It’s the result of conservatives failing to turn enough people into conservatives. The fact that we’re always having to choose between lesser evils is a sign that we’re not winning the big argument with liberalism in the mind of the public.
That’s the bottom line. All this back and forthing about purity vs. pragmatism is just a symptom of our losing that argument. Win it, and the purity vs. pragmatism thing goes away.
Of course winning it means moving mountains in the way people think about things. The question is, are we willing to do that?
As for who’s accountable for what and who’s to blame for Obama versus Romney and all that — this is just low level squabbling that misses the real point.