Chuck Hughes, Salisbury, N.C.
♦ Vote as You Will, but Understand the Consequences of Your Vote:
If I may use an analogy: I want to build three facilities. So I ask the bank for 10 million dollars, but the bank will only approve 7.5 million. Now I must choose between getting nothing and accepting the 7.5 million offered. However, I stick to my principles; if I cannot get everything I want I won’t accept anything. I ask you, just what have I gained?
This analogy holds for elections as well. When you refuse to vote for the most conservative candidates because of his perceived shortcomings, you make it one vote easier for his opponent to win.
Unfortunately, the GOP is no longer the conservative party of Reagan. Reality, whether or not I like it – and I don’t – is that the dynamics of the electorate have changed. We have stuck to our purity for enough elections to allow the progressive movement to buy off the vote of the 51% needed to win. Fortunately, this bit of reality is less concrete when dealing with local elections. The conservatives can have a major influence at this level.
Do not misunderstand me. I am a strong constitutional conservative, but I also realize that I live in a world that is not. I reluctantly accept the reality of losing everything if I “hold on to my principles”, as I did with my fumbled banking scenario and compromise and take the $7.5 million rather than wake up on November 4th without anything.
I respect everyone’s political views. I only ask others to respect mine in return. Even if they do not, I will be no less a Reagan Republican with conservative values and be no less sensitive to the political realities of the day. Sadly, I believe we have already lost hundreds potential members because we cannot accept less than what we ask for without raising a sinister eyebrow.
I realize that the criticism will be, “I sold out my principles and values.” This rebuke would not be justified, however. I am just as principled and just as conservative as ever; I have only adjusted to the reality of the political world I live in. The proof lies in the fact that we would all be sleeping a lot better at night if the conservative turnout had put the less conservative, Mitt Romney in the White House instead of giving a second term to a progressive who does not even know how to spell CONSIRVETISM.
So I would argue that primaries are where we separate the wheat from the chaff; the general election is where wheat is turned into bread. So, after the primary, whether or not “my candidate” won, I will swallow and support the winner. I urge you to do the same.”
