Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Sjostrom is way too impressed with his own importance, as if he is personally responsible for the fate of the free world. He isn’t, and his choice for president has no significance for the outcome.

On the other hand, the Republican Party may not “learn” what you hope for if large numbers of conservatives stay home. For Party leaders, the takeaway will be to not trust the average voters at all, who in aggregate are choosing to defy the wisdom of the Party hierarchy. I predict that their reaction to a loss will be to make sure that the next presidential candidate faces almost no competition in the primaries.

http://vodkapundit.com/?p=9375

Mr. Green is very funny (especially with a few Martinis in him) but what those candidates said was actually pretty scary.  Unfortunately this election does matter, so don’t sit out.  McCain, Romney, Giuliani may all have their faults, but all of them are better (by far) than Hillary or Obama.  Heck even Huckabee is better. 

The choice for me is clear:  McCain.  I know John has a lot of problems with conservatives, but he has a decent tax and spending cut plan, will be good on effectively fighting the war, and can beat Hillary or Obama. 

Mitt is a serial panderer.  Mitt will also lose to Hillary or Obama. 

I like Rudy, but he does have a little Mussolini complex (no he is not really a fascist) and a checkered past that the Clinton Machine will grind him apart on.

Isn’t it “crypts” not “crips”?

It is hardly over the top when I wrote in the very next sentence, “I am not suggesting that the Democrats are akin to the Crips”.  My point stands: you counted the benefits and ignored the costs in your analysis.  Did the country survive Carter.  Well, yeah, so far.  But his fecklessness on Iran set Iran on the path to becoming a dangerous nuclear power, and we may not survive that.

It is also perhaps worth noting that although the country survived the power grab by the Democrats during Watergate, millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians did not.  The US survived Clinton, but nearly a million Rwandans were massacred because Clinton pressured an admitted very compliant UN into doing exactly nothing.

A follow up observation.  You are certainly correct that your vote carries little consequence. Likewise mine.  My absentee ballot goes to a very Republican district in Illinois, where the Republican candidate for the House (currently empty; it was Dennis Hastert) gets 70% of the vote in a bad year.  The point I was trying to make was not about your vote, but your attempts to persuade others to your position.

Wouldn’t it be tragic if only half the eligible population bothered to vote, and only about half of those voted for the eventual winner? We might begin to suspect that federal policy does not represent “the will of the people” and that the supposed relevance of the chief executive is a lot of puffery and fable cynically inculcated in the masses by public affairs trolls.

But, you know, what if as a conservative you vote for a phony conservative, the “least bad” party hack who is palatable to enough ignorant and emotionally disturbed voters from the other side to win?

Then you would give to the Republican Party the imprimatur of the “conservative” party that can’t manage a budget, can’t manage a war, and can’t implement the simplest item on the agenda of its idealists.

What a bunch of suckers!

I will sit this one out too. I have really voices inside me that tell me to leave the GOP also.

I don’t mind losing a war with the enemy, but I’ll be darned if I’ll help wheel in the Trojan Horse.

The Hillary card threat doesn’t work for me. I’d rather, If I’m going to have my family murdered and raped, have it be done by the neighbors son than my own.

It’s the difference between being shot in war fighting for your country or being shot for treason. I’ll not take part in the destruction of conservatism by helping to water it down.

300 million people and the GOP can’t find one moral man with character, and integrety who support traditional Judeo-Christian values.

What is the consequence of sitting out?  If a Dem wins they most surely will have full control of Congress as well.  Here is a list:

1) 1-2 retirements on the Supreme Court
2) Taxes will be raised
3) Other government programs will be increased at even higher levels
4) Universal healthcare

1) is an obvious issue, while no conservatives are likely to retire, it will be a missed opportunity to shape the court for the foreseeable future.  On 2)-4)...here is the big problem with “sitting out.” There WILL be big expansion of government, unfortunately, it is almost impossible to reverse those programs.

Hypothetically speaking, Hillary wins and she creates a universal health care system...do you think a Republican president could actually reverse that program in 4 years?  Once you give it to the American people, it will be hard as hell to take away, even Reagan was only marginally successful here.

I’d think about sitting out as well if I knew Congress would be in safe hands, but if a Dem wins the WH they are assured of holding onto Congress.

Just think about it: You will be personally responsible for saving or dooming the world by your choice. Life or death--which will it be? If you sit out this election, the most important election ever, the apocalypse will follow soon after--and the blood will be on your hands. You will rue the day you ever thought about betraying The Party!