With Lots More Flies

Well, then, it is starting to look as though the Republican primary race might still be going on when they all get to Idaho. Santorum pulled off a hat trick last night, winning Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado, taking a little sheen off of the Romney inevitability lustre.

There are four contenders left, two of whom I could vote for in good conscience (Santorum and Paul), and two of whom I couldn’t (Romney and Gingrich). I say this knowing that either Romney or Gingrich would likely be way less destructive for the nation (in the short run) than Obama has been.

So why not vote for them then? The answer is that there is such a thing as slow-mo destruction, and this is a pattern that has been institutionalized by the Republican Party. It is the way they do things. If enough people hold their nose and vote for them, they call it a mandate, and arrange for a bigger pile the next time around, this time with lots more flies.

Neither Santorum nor Paul are pristine perfect, and so I understand the slow-mo argument can be applied to both of them as well. Are we going to get more compassionate conservatism, of the kind that bought a tricked-out Lexus, filled up the tank, and gave the keys to Obama? Or are we going to get more squishiness on homo-marriage, the kind of squishiness that destroys civilizations?

In the end you make a judgment call. What you are doing is making is a judgment call on a candidate’s root instincts. This is the reason political judgments like this should not affect a believer’s fellowship with another differing believer — it is possible to share the principle, and differ over the application. I can fully see someone who agrees with me entirely on the principle feeling as though he has more options than I do, or fewer. God bless him, and every bone in his head. Little joke. We have that kind of relationship. I can say things like that.

You play it as it lays. If the race were down to Romney and Paul when it gets to Idaho, I would certainly vote for Paul — wanting to give as much leverage to the fiscal sanity contingent at the convention as I could. They might be able to pull Romney out into the sunshine in edifying ways. At the same time, they could do no real damage on social issues or radical Islamic policy issues, and so there you go. But if Santorum is a viable non-Romney candidate when the circus gets to town, then in my judgment, that is the way to go.

I can say this not begrudging the delegate heft that the Paul party will have earned up to that point. Their performance has been impressive, and ought to be honored and treated with respect. The winner will make a grave mistake if he simply throws them a bone. Where they have been talking sense, give them high respect. Where they have not been, then it may at that point be passed over in discrete silence.