I have a really hard time understanding how the man with such a brilliant mind backed himself into a corner that a bunch of us deewbs on the internet knew enough to avoid and discussed at the time. To me it looks like he gambled big and lost.
Choices: Yup. thats why getting the corrupting idea of 'lesser evil' out of the mix is imperative before it results in this fiasco yet again.
Norm, on that we agree. I have a hard time understanding that, too, except that I think Cruz (and the rest of the field) underestimated the ability of Trump to ensnare the angry and underestimated Trump's willingness to go dirty long and hard through the primary campaign.
I honestly don't think any of those on the ticket were prepared for that rancor, but noticed a couple embraced it pretty early on. Not that I would have considered Christie, anyway, but Carson went way down in my estimation as soon as he toadied up to Trump. All history, now.
We need to start voting for the greater good. We won't get 100%, unless we are very, very lucky. Even so, I will vote for the candidate who best represents my beliefs and principles, above a threshold where I do not consider the % of good to be sufficient to merit my ballot. I think we all function that way, to some degree. I also think we have different thresholds. In Trump's case, the bar is just set too low.
Take a second and tell me how you select a candidate to support (or dump the field).
My methodology, simplified: (all in blue so you can skip it and read on if you choose)
I start with issues. If they don't align there, there's no point. I want 100% but will settle for 90% if the deal-breakers aren't areas of conflict.
Deal-breakers:
Abortion (must be pro life, or set to advance that cause),
Defense (Constitutional duty of the fedGov, including border security and controlling immigration, but not including 'nation building').
Gun Control (just say no, better yet, roll it back).
Global Warming/Climate Change: embrace that as any reason to form policy, lose my vote.
Taxes: Enough already, control spending, balance the budget, downsize all but the military.
Take adversarial positions on those issues and we aren't going to get along.
But the Republican Party demands only lip service to their platform, not adherence to the letter. When was the last time they kicked anyone out? So we are left with a useless label, not a matter of principle unless the candidate chooses to embrace principle. Which is why equating "Republican" with "conservative" has been an egregious mistake and either needs to stop, or Conservatives need to find a new label.
Part of the analysis has to include a credibility factor. Obviously if their stances on the issues don't match up, they get dropped from consideration, but the ones which align have to have a track record that supports those positions. Election year epiphanies don't hold water.
That will usually eliminate most of the rest, if they aren't already gone. Some years, they all are by then.
So that means we go back down the list for the last one on top and decide if we can, in good conscience, vote for them. Thus it has ever been, and ...I have only cast a couple of ballots in wholehearted support of a candidate, ever, as I was locked into the false dichotomy of only two parties.
I have realized we need more choices, especially as the most likely people in terms of having principles which agree with my own, are going to be on another party ticket besides the Republicans and Democrats. I have found that the principles expressed in those third Party Platforms are more likely to be honest, although sometimes not entirely realistic or even a satire. There have not been the corrupting influences of the Uniparty to distort them, and if they didn't mean it, why bother? Credibility takes a jump there.
It doesn't take much more than time to go down the list of parties (some 70+) and eliminate most from consideration: too liberal, too single issue and not thought out, not serious, simple nutcase ideas, and ferret out those alternate parties which are serious and reasonably aligned. Of those I find one stood out for me.
Then opens a new world of parties squabbling for relevance, of hit pieces written by proponents of one of those parties against the candidate of another, and to some degree, the same sort of fish fighting for who will be the biggest in that smaller pond. Surely, if one is looking for a party to build up for the future, nothing to ignore. The basics apply: if you are taking flack, you're over the target, always find out about the writer of the hit piece and see what they are promoting (usually a competing party), and just because they might be more honest about their beliefs doesn't mean they won't pull dirty tricks to win. (Cody Quirk's hit pieces aimed at Castle, for instance {Quirk is a Libertarian}) But the race to 15% is on in third party circles, and the battle is hard fought for votes.
I would have liked to see a debate among the top three or four 'third' party candidates, just to get their take on the issues, and to see those parties get exposure, to provide that principled alternative for voters. But the MSM won't back that, the big two sure won't, and short of a stellar ballot performance it won't happen. Even now, only the Greens and the Libertarians get mention (another republicrat pair off), and the Constitution Party seldom gets mention. I support the Constitution Party Platform, for the most part, and will vote to bring that into the limelight.
Winning depends on the objective, frankly. If the objective is to gain exposure, bring the Party into the debate, and that is accomplished, I consider that a 'win', this time. I don't expect Castle and Bradley to win the election, but would like to see the Party rise from the obscurity the others languish in. Eventually, short of getting a place in the main debates, whichever of the smaller Parties could win enough EV to force the House to decide might have a shot at altering the political landscape, especially if the House vote is so finely split that one Party might be convinced to vote to deny the other the Presidency by voting for the Third Party candidate. Pipe dreams, I know.
