For example, let's postulate that America's regulatory/tax/judicial system is 70% leftist as of today. And let's also postulate that the Rats want to move it to 99%.
Given the choice of three GOP candidates:
Candidate JMc will compromise by moving the system to "only" 75% leftist, and is easily electable
Candidate MD will move the country back to 67% leftist, and is electable with some work
Candidate AK will move the country back to 0% leftist, but is completely unelectable
---I vote for Candidate MD in the primary every time.
I'm not talking about the primaries.(by the time the primaries got to my state it was either McQueeg or Mittens....or no choice at all)
I'm talking about the general election...by then the only candidate that wasn't a card carrying Marxist/Stalinist, lost, for a large part because certain conservatives stayed home in order to cut of their group nose to spite their collective faces...