Victory or Ideological Purity?
Something else to keep in mind for next year’s elections. We are not only selecting a President (hopefully a new, competent one) but the GOP has a great opportunity to regain control of both the US House and Senate. 23 Senate seats currently held by Democrats are up for grabs. The choice of a Presidential nominee will impact these races as well.
Again, conservatives need to get behind someone who can win and not just someone that sound good and say what Tea Party members want to hear and believe can win. Think about 2010. Two of their favorite candidates, Christine O”Donnell in Delaware lost to the uber liberal Chris Coons and, even worse, Sharron Angle lost to the insipid and eminently beatable Harry Reid in Nevada. These two candidates were virtually hand picked by the Tea Party for ideological purity. Both of these seats should have been taken away from the libs but the GOP went with ideology over electability. The result, look at who won and nothing more needs to be said. And the reason they both lost is because they simply could not appeal to enough independents to get them elected.
Is that what you want? Would you rather lose to a flaming, hanky-wringing, liberal tax, borrow and spend, spend, spend, nut case just because you can’t get your ‘perfect’ candidate elected? Time to start making some grown up choices.
A strong, electable Republican Presidential nominee will have a significant impact on these Senate races as well and could be the difference between stopping this country from going over the cliff and bringing some measure of sanity back to Washington. Again, the need is to think in terms of winning vs. purity.
The independent voters, who make up almost 40% of the electorate, went for The One in a huge landslide in ’08. Right now, every poll shows them as very disillusioned with him and are looking for a candidate they can get behind and replace The One with. But, it is not going to be Ron Paul or any of the other fringe candidates who appeal ideologically but will be too extreme to independents. I know Tea Party members don’t like to be told this but, time to face reality. Plus, he’s already killed his chances by stating he would not have killed Osama bib Laden. This boat anchor will hang around his neck and he won’t be able to get rid of it no matter what he does.
Decide what you want, purity or victory. You can’t have both if you continue to back Ron Paul, Michelle Bachmann or the others that cannot appeal to enough independents and cannot win the election. Getting the nomination doesn’t do any good. It is winning the general election and the math doesn’t lie.
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