The reason I asked you that question, is because the FL Tea Partiers already said that if Crist wins the primary, they won’t support him. In fact, they actually said that if Crist wins the primary, they hope he loses to the Dem in November 2010.

OK, let’s suppose Crist manages to beat Rubio and win the primary fair and square. Will you close ranks behind Crist and work to get him elected in November 2010? Or will you stalk off in a huff and refuse to support him because he wasn’t your guy?

Nice strawman. But no, there are many who are to the right of me who I consider intelligent actors, valuable in any policy discussion.

Unfortunately, these days those same people are largely being expelled from the Republican Party as RINOs. Often, it’s simply one position they may hold … be it being pro-choice … or favoring government action to slow the emissions of CO2 … or being in favor of raising taxes in some forms as part of a strategy to reduce the deficit … and suddenly they are now on the wrong side of a line.

There are no doubt some who disagree with me on pretty much everything who aren’t maniacs, for the simple reason that they start with a different set of presuppositions – but they are internally consistent within a framework, and modify their beliefs to fit evidence presented to them, and don’t go on the attack when contradictory evidence is presented, but rather weigh it to consider whether they believe it, and how it may affect their original beliefs.

That’s acting rationally. Doesn’t mean that I’ll agree with them at the end of the day, but I can at least see that they got somewhere out of logic, and not simply reactionary thinking.

Well, perhaps in Chicago or LA you need to deal with diverse and parochial interests and scratch backs to get the trash picked up or potholes filled. This not everywhere the case.

thanks for sharing your … ummm … opinion

This is where David Frum & Co miss the point: I’m all for growing the base, expanding the coalition, etc. But the Scozzafava candidacy was a characteristic example of the tin-eared faux-sophistry that does nothing but blow your own foot off. It’s a shame over 900 grand’s worth of good people’s donations at a time of recession should have to be tossed out of a moving vehicle on the Adirondack Northway to demonstrate the obvious point that nobody needs Scozzafava Republicanism.

Incidentally I just voted for a statist Republican (and a fat guy to boot) so don’t y’all say I’m not a “team player”. Chris Christie is definitely an improvement over Corzine and in this case I’m not going to throw away my vote on a third party.

Why is Frum mum on the endorsement by the Republican star/nominee of the 23rd endorsing the Democrat? No POSSIBLE way to spin that even for a Yale poli-sci grad with a propensity to fudge and distort. It has to be embarrassing to him and other statist Republicans who have to witness with us the ideological depravity that infects the R party . More Colin Powell Republicanism….endorse Democrats and then lecture the rest of us…

The Tea Party purity drive just doesn’t work in a managerial situation- even if magically half the nation’s mayors and governors became Tea Party conservatives tomorrow, they would still have to contend with this same equation; and either they would compromise and become centrists, or get taken out with the trash at the next election cycle.

A true political junkie would have taken his laptop with him, found an ISP in UK and Italy, and connected to New Majority from there.