I have been this route with DG and I do not think I will make any more headway with you than I did with him … but I am inclined to try anyway. I can symphonize with your feelings over not voting in the primaries as I experience misgivings there too, BUT for the fact that we are stuck with whomsoever wins the primary.

I am convinced that many independents and other non-committed voters feel this indifference and the results are not usually good. You might ask yourself who does vote in the primaries when you decide to skip this triviality. As a rule, the diehard supporters, the ones that benefit from the stupidity that we call Congress are the ones that vote. And then the general election comes along … what have we got to work with … not my idea of a tactful vote under anyone’s definition.

As a parting example: I did not vote for McCain during his primary bid for President … did you? I know DG did not vote and I suspect you did not either, so how in the world did that old RiNO warhorse get the nomination …? Because not enough people who oppose the established lunacy that is our Government voted in the primary. So when the general came around our hands were tied.

No matter how I try and look at this, I cannot figure out how your inattention in the primaries can be seen as a choice you are actually making when the general arrives? I learned my lesson chatting with DG so I am not trying to sway you to reconsider; I am just expressing my own frustrations over a problem that is robbing all of us of the best candidates possible BEFORE the general.

Understandable.

I've been generally reluctant to vote in general. With time I've become rather jaded with politics in general. Both parties suck, and I really don't see them changing any time soon. Lately, I've found that my belief that it is naive to think that any change (real or otherwise) will come and that ultimately we have to be the change, has only grown.

~L

Actually I believe I did vote in that primary -- against McCain as I saw him as too much of a RINO.

I will say I didn't vote for McCain in the general election, as much as it hurts to think of the idea that I might be supporting someone else with my vote, I used my vote in that election as a protest against the stupidity of giving the nomination to someone that, like Bob Dole before him, was apparently "owed" the nomination no matter how much he had tried to give a big middle finger to the ideals of the party he claims/ed to be a member of.  In my mind he was too old, too cranky, and too unpredictable to consider giving the nomination to, much less giving the job to.  I'm not a fan of Obama, nor Clinton (H.R.C.) and didn't want either of them to win, but in some ways considered either of them a lesser evil over McCain -- at least with them you knew going in what they were likely to do.  They had said it before, promised it was coming, etc.  With McCain he had said it before, promised it, tried to deliver it with help from liberal buddies or in helping liberal buddies, and then later he pulled a John Kerry and flip-flopped on issues so he could try to placate the party.

Personally, I'm more of a moderate than a hardcore conservative, but I can't stand people that flop around on issues and pander to the voting public.  Take a stand, stand by it, and have principles.  Don't sell them out for anything or anyone.  If you have truly reconsidered a position and changed over time that's fine, but don't just adopt a new position temporarily so you can get the job (which is pretty much what McCain seemed to be doing all along).

I'd love to think that fringe element of the GOP would split off and go form a third party and leave behind some of the more moderate elements, or that perhaps the moderates would split off and form their own party and leave behind the rest.  I doubt it will happen, but the Tea Party movement seems to be making some waves.  Sadly, in the end it may cost the GOP control in the Senate and possibly the House   It may not be a bad thing as there is quite a bit of unknown with the Tea Party movement favorites, and they may or may not help the situation.  Certainly I like the idea of cleaning out the lifers in Congress, but at the same time I don't at all like the idea that the GOP would lose because the nominees that were chosen by Tea Party sentiment got clobbered in the general election while some more moderate candidates might have won and ended the Democrat dynasty that currently exists in Congress.

Oh well, in a few months it will all be over but the crying on either side.

I think that is an excellent idea!  The downside is that the front runner at the start will win it.  But at least for the rest of us, we get to pick from ALL the candidates.

Quite possibly true, but then the candidates will have to work harder to make their case before the primaries. If all primaries were held on the same day in the 2008 election, I seriously doubt Obama or McCain would have been their respective parties choices for president. In hindsight that probably would have been best for the country.