Obviously. Of course, most refuse to look at most of those tools, and folks like yourself try to make us believe we're limited only to the tools you say we can safely use.
The only tool we have to possibly advance a conservative agenda is Romney.
That's like saying the only tool we have to possibly advance good health is a mega-dose of cyanide.
That we are left with Romney is a whole discussion in and of itself, but are we going to use the tool or not?
You cannot possibly use Mitt Romney for anything good. You can only allow yourself to be used by him. He's the one with the power. You're the tool. Do you get it?
Many at FR are stating they will not vote for Romney - that is fine...
How generous of you to let us decide how to deploy our sacred franchise.
...but it misses the fundamental issue at hand
I'm pretty certain from reading your post that you don't have a clue as to what any of the actual fundamental issues at hand really are.
- the time to go full bore against the GOP establishment was in 2008. Conservatives didn’t do it effectively for 3-1/2 solid years.
Why? Because you say so? In truth, it always the time to go all in for what is right. If you haven't done it previously, start now, before it is too late for you and your country.
To claim a principled political stand when there is no viable candidate to articulate those principles is simply self-aggrandizement and self-back-patting - in abundant supply here by folks here.
Some of us will take a principled stand even if there isn't another soul on the planet willing to do so. We don't determine right and wrong by a democratic vote, or the whims of a mob. But, in any case, the American people can make anyone they want viable, without reference to your arbitrary opinions about it.
“Look at me, I’ve got pure principles” - No, the time for 2012 was 3 years ago. The time for 2016 is now.
Again, it is always the time to do what is right.
If FR is influential as it once was, why are we in this predicament?
This "predicament" is because folks have listened for too long to people like yourself.
Will FR be influential for the 2016 race - or the 2014 midterms? Not if FR takes itself out of the presidential race debate in 2012.
Decent folks don't ask themselves those sorts of questions. They know that if they are simply faithful and consistent in doing good, they will have influence, and that if they do wrong, God will take away their power and influence. This is as sure as the sun coming up in the morning.
Use the leaky bucket to bail out the boat when you don’t have any other bucket. To claim purity of principle by refusing to bail out the boat at all, even with a leaky bucket, is fine, but the boat will certainly sink.
See, that's the thing. You're not bailing out anything. You're bashing more holes in the hull with a sledgehammer.
Politics is not a place for purity of principle in the best of times. It would be nice if it was, but it never has been.
The founders of this republic would find such statements to be repugnant.
-- George Washington, First Inaugural Address, 1789"There exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained."
Right now conservatives aren’t getting much of anything.
And they never will get anything that matters from Romney, or Romney Republicans.
Unseat Obama with the tool we have, and maybe we’ll get something.
The idea that Mitt Romney, a man whose own supporters hate him, can win this election, is laughable.
Don’t unseat Obama and we get nothing.
Sadly, with the development of Romney Republicanism, conservatives and conservatism get nothing even if you could unseat Obama and replace him with Mitt Romney. Nothing at all, except the consolidation of the socialist gains of Barack Obama.
This.
Excellent post; thank you.
“Obviously. Of course, most refuse to look at most of those tools, and folks like yourself try to make us believe we’re limited only to the tools you say we can safely use”
You won’t even face the obvious political reality that the race is between Obama and Romney. Then you switch the argument to personal principle from the political principle argument I’m making - and you insert the predictable self congratulatory rhetoric that breaks out here quite often because you “stick to your (personal) principles”, like you’re the only one who’s ever thought about that.
This is politics.
You’ve got Obama, and you’ve got Romney. That’s it.
It’s not that hard to understand.