A presidential election is not a discrete vote on issue y, as though it were a referendum. If we were a pure democracy, and if at every fork in the road we all had to text in our druthers (“text FP113 for bombing Tehran,” “FP114 for signing the peace treaty,” etc.), besides creating a hellish place to live, the issues would at least be clear. Going vote by vote, there would be no moral ambiguity. You could vote for just one thing, and do so one at a time. There would be no omnibus bills with nefarious provisions tucked away in their nether regions, and neither would there be scores of politicians who campaign one way and govern another.
One of the problems we have is that we want to treat the election of individuals as though the choices are just as clear cut as such a single issue referendum would be (“text DP125 to raise the debt ceiling”). If a Christian were to text in a vote to allow abortion-on-demand to continue, he could be rebuked for that, no questions asked. But alas, the real world is a lot messier. In our particular form of government, we are being asked to send unstable people to a place where other corrupt people play thimblerig with millions of shells and just one pea.
When Rod Martin said that Doug Jones and I supported homosexual marriage (which neither of us do, then or now), he was doing so on the basis of a particular assumption about this game of thimblerig we are in. “Which of these two shells is the pea under?” If we point out that there are lots of other shells on the table, and that the pea might be way over there, that counterargument is simply dismissed.
In the current drama, my refusal to support Romney is taken as support for Obama. Saying this is a way of disciplining me, since it seems clear to lots of folks that Romney is now beyond the reach of discipline.
But it seems to me that what establishment conservatives really ought to be doing is something other than rallying to Romney like we were at a junior high pep rally, unless they want to have absolutely nothing to negotiate with by the time some real decisions are being made at the convention. I don’t call that “taking one for the team.” I call it being bad at negotiations.
And again, I am sure there will be more later . . .