Drew wrote: How is not voting not a form of influence?

Because, if you expect the party to reward you for not showing up, rather than punish you, you're deluded. The way to gain influence in your party is to get more of the people who think like you to show up. Getting less people who think like you to the polls tells the party that you can't be trusted and counted upon.

If you want to have influence, first you convince a majority that your ideas are right. Then you get someone who supports those ideas to run. Then you get the majority of people you've convinced to go vote. When you're successful doing that, you gain the trust of the party and gain influence. When you fail at accomplishing those things, the party has no reason to believe you can win and they won't get behind you. Period.

If you want influence you have to convince the candidates you like to run and then go vote. That's the only way to effect change. Letting the party burn down in order to send a message, allowing it to wallow in a marginalized minority, only strengthens the other party.

Drew wrote: Anyway, there's nothing wrong with a little purification of the party, is there?

Yes, there is, when liberals and moderates have gotten more votes than your party in 4 of the last 5 presidential elections.

K T wrote: I voted for Reagan in 1980.

My remark was directed at the original poster, Ian.

Neither, it's an observation and something of an exhortation.

Shucks, some of my best work swallowed by our benefactors' anxious maw. C'est la vie, I guess.

Anyway, I guess I too encourage the true conservatives to stay home, rather than vote for Romney. Because the facts of politics, indeed the laws of matter, tell us if you don't show up, you can't produce any influence. Seeing as I find the small tent of ideological purity approach a dumb one, I welcome those who espouse it marginalizing themselves by pouting and not participating.

So benefactors, please keep more 19 year olds who've never even voted coming here to patronizingly lecture us about the "smart" way to build a conservative coalition. I wholeheartedly welcome it!

Brilliant Nathaniel. I propose you send this idea to James O'Keefe and have him expose this.

Welcome to the club, Joseph. It's lonely around here, and the rewards you can expect, even in victory are lousy. But I'm pretty sure it still beats losing.

[Ed. Deleted for CoC violation.]

Me?! You're the one who keeps on asking the Romney supporters to woo you even thought you insist on posting "this is why I can't stand, Romney" posts time and again.

:p

Really, I'm inside Levin's head, too? I'm actually kind of flattered if that's true.

To that point, you can't have missed the arguments like Goldberg's which have been made over and over again about Romney. You're a smart lady, Mollie. You've seen all the debates, the campaign videos of the candidates. You've read article after article and listened to the pundits. As editor you've read all the arguments made here ( you do read them right? ;) ) You and others like you are bright enough to be able to assess the candidates at this point and figure out which one can win and deserves your support.

I don't feel compelled to say the things I've been saying for weeks if not months over and over again to persuade those who should be able to see things for themselves. If you and those on the fence can't figure it out by now, with all that's been said, written, analyzed, spun, and argued over, why do you expect those of us on Romney's band wagon have some magical capacity to convince you of something you should either already be convinced of or to have rejected?

But Mollie, people have been doing that on this board for months. I don't think many Romney supporters have been overly gratuitous in their praise or that we are trying to pad Romney's credentials or virtues. He has always been the one eyed man in the land of blind. Perhaps some have been trying to pull a snow job, but for the most part I think Romney supporters here have laid it out in a pretty honest, pragmatic way. Yet you want us to keep on repeating ourselves.

cont.

Franco, do I owe you rent for that little piece of real estate inside your head you choose to grant to me?

Jonah Goldberg says, yes.

Do you think Levin does anything but preach to the choir? You don't educate anyone by screaming at people who disagree with you and making hyperbolic doomsday rants. That doesn't persuade or edify anyone who doesn't already agree with you. It just puts an angry, red, nasty face on the point of view you espouse.