I think you should keep in mind that these three things are quite distinct:

1. What's best for America,
2. What's best for the Republican Party, and
3. What's best for the careers of specific conservative pundits.

The conservatives who are bad-mouthing McCain are concentrating on #3 to the detriment of #1 and #2. Their description of how it may benefit Republicans in the long term is blatantly wishful thinking, and their active disregard for the good of the nation borders on treason.

Hoping things get worse so that your "movement" can seize power is the kind of insane, evil strategy followed by Marxists and national socialists. If the Republicans take this poisonous advice they deserve to lose. Fortunately, the Republican voters seem to be much more sensible and patriotic than the self-appointed leaders of the "movement."

The biggest wound to the Republican party was tying itself to "cultural conservatives".

Thanks to folks from the Moral Majority, the party here was taken over by religiously motivated folks at the precinct level. It was extremely easy to take over the county organizations. After that, all a dem had to do was talk about a Woman's Right to Choose. The evangelical's desire to mandate what should be a private, family decision has left us with a democrat party where mere concern over increasingly stupid economic and science policy trumps common sense. Because there is no common sense among Republicans.

"What's our issue? Abortion! What are we gonna do? End it now!"

There are a lot of Holy Joes out there with rock in hand. Iconic faith in the principles of our Founding Fathers has to be maintained. Good intentions aside, without that, where is the difference?

The Religious Right's impulse to tell us how to live our lives is more consistent with the Democrat/Lefty impulse to tell us how to live our lives. How will it turn out? Watching Venezuela is like having a laboratory in your own back yard. Did you listen to Obama last night? To Senator Clinton?

The issues are boiling down to just one. Who do you think will do a better job looking out for your interests, the Government or you?

Well, just speaking as a treasonous American, I think it's possible to try to play long ball in politics. Do you think a Ford win in '76 would have advanced conservative interests, because Ford would have been right some of the time? Or that we were possibly better off with Carter, whose dismal record caused an awakening that made the election of Ron Reagan possible? Do you think the swift right turn under Reagan would have been possible, had Jimmy Carter not soiled himself and liberalism for four years? Had a mediocre liberal Republican been in office in '80, don't you think 12 years of Republican incumbency would have favored a turn to the preferred Dem men in waiting - the Ted Kennedys and Gary Harts?

Seeing as Obama is the likely Dem nominee, I'll probably have to hold my nose and vote for McCain, who will be wrong perhaps 60% of the time, but will at least (probably) be right on (probably) 75% of national defense questions. I suspect that Obama would be wrong roughly 100% of the time, and that this wrongness - specifically his horrifying naivete about foreign affairs - would be literally fatal to many, and lead us into much, much more dangerous times. As a moral matter (damned social conservatives and their treasonous morals...) I don't think I can condone urging the country towards national disaster.

That said, it's just my judgment about what I think will happen. I get there because my premise is that Obama will lead a disastrous retreat in the GWOT, which is clearly winnable if we're in it for the long term; and I assume McCain realizes this and would stick it out. Those are just my beliefs though - McCain has been really ready to ditch core beliefs to win a headline or to spite a political enemy, and Obama is likely to be moderated a bit by Congress, at least if there is a voter revolt after two years of insanity, a la 1994. Yet I think it's a non-trivial argument to make, to suggest that a nation sometimes (not always) needs to hit rock bottom before it has a moment of clarity and changes its ways. If the opinion polls are correct and the entire nation has taken a fairly hard left turn in the last 5 years, and if the moment of clarity is needed, then the sooner we can have it the better. There's potential costs with either approach, and a lot depends on your premises and how you view the next couple years unfolding, an impossible predictive task. I'm uncertain enough of my own beliefs of how things will go down, that I'm loathe to call people who see it differently treasonous or insane, and in fact wonder where people are getting their facts from, to be so certain about how the future will shake out.

The moral crusaders of both the left and right don't recognize that limited government requires the enforcement of a limited moral code: the defense of life, liberty, and property. All the other desires of both the progressives and the social conservatives are strictly matters for private life.

Sorry guys, the personal ain't political.

Sorry, Al, but if Ford had been elected in '76, we might have been able to avoid the current conflict with radical Islam. It's not a foregone conclusion, but we can't know for sure what would have happened. It might be that Ford's performance in '76-'80 could have brought Congress under Republican control much sooner than otherwise happened. The Soviet Union might have collapsed in the early '80s rather than the late '80s. Who can say? But to allow such terrible things to happen to our country in the hope that four (or more likely eight) years later, people will repent of their decisions is foolhardy. It's Russian roulette. Better to implement a stop-gap measure and work on shoring up conservative principles at the local and state levels so we can have a better field of candidates the next go-round.

Yes Al, I must agree with John S. If we think John McCain has not been true to certain principles we cherish, how does our abandoning those same ideas to support someone who is 100% antithetical to them make us better than McCain?

Also, remember that California is NOT representative of the rest of the USA. And the prospect of an Obama Administration's utter failure (v.s. a Clinton administration's canny triangulating) would improve a conservative's chances in 2012.

Sure, vote for the RINO because, just maybe, things will turn around. I've heard that every single presidential election since the early 80s. Same old, same old.

That's why things have gotten this bad. The RINOs don't have to give a sh*t what you think because they know you'll have no choice. Just like blacks and the democrats. Who you gonna vote for, Whitey?

Keep voting for the "lesser" socialist, and soon enough you'll only get to vote socialist. Like now. 3 socialists. One women, one colored, one crazy old white coot.

Enjoy your tasty sh*t sandwich. Yummy!

Trimegistus, don't forget your history. The moral majority's been a cornerstone of the Republican party since it's founding.

Of course back then they were called Radical Republicans as opposed to the Moral Majority, and they violently hated the Democrats; remember John Brown and Bleeding Kansas?

As for the idea that many Republicans are rejecting McCain out of political purity, that's absolute bunk. It's a rejection of socialism.

This whole election cycle has represented a very hard move to the left by the Republican Party Bosses, and is a gigantic middle finger to the Republican base.

Also it grates on just as many of us libertarians within the Republican party as it does the moral majority side of the aisle.

That stated, I'll vote for McCain, and then hope that Congress ends up evenly split between the Republicans and Democrats.

"Also, remember that California is NOT representative of the rest of the USA."

And the other thing to remember is that conservative Californians could leave CA for other parts of the US. That acts as a safety valve. When the entire country goes socialist, where will you run to?

The other thing is that just as when Bush talks about the Long War he wasn't talking about just his administration. He was talking about 30 years or more.

My own estimate is that it will take a generation of lousy socialist economics, spiced with a couple of Muslim nukes because of socialist foreign policy stupidity, before "the hearts of the meanest were humbled,
and began to believe it was true,
that all is not Gold that glitters,
and Two and Two make Four,
and the Gods of the Copybook Headings
limped up to explain it once more."

However, if fools only learn at the school of experience, we might as well start the schooling, and I'm not going to leave the fools any RINO cover when it happens.