...I am not a treasonous bastard if I vote 3rd party. An argument could be made that I am the one who is following the Constitution since I am holding to it’s principles....
I need to make a clarification. I am the one who introduced the "treasonous bastard" label, and I don't want the intent of what I said misunderstood. I wasn't speaking of voters, I was speaking of one politician. And I was speaking not of treason to the country, but of potential betrayal of the Republican party by running as a Republican, being a libertarian in actuality, and then running a 3rd party general election candidacy when you don't get the nomination. Think Lisa Murkowski - that kind of "treason", not the kind punishable by death.
If a politician claims to be a member of a party even though their values are out of the mainstream, and they use that party's apparatus to gain momentum for a run, but don't get the nomination, and then instead of bowing out, they make a 3rd party run, that is a betrayal of trust in my opinion. A party cannot function for the most people possible if electoral rebuttal by voters results in a threat to run 3rd party.
2nd, I wasn't speaking of people whose conscience leads them to vote 3rd party. We all have a line that we will not cross to support a GOP we deem not worthy of support. That is a personal line, we draw it in different places, and I respect everyone's line.
I look at the field that we have now, and I am dismayed. I came into this thinking Ron Paul was the worst of the worst. I don't think that anymore. In spite of his obvious problems, he is the one candidate above all the others who unapologetically and unwaveringly adheres to a set of principles. I differ with a few of his principles in a huge way, but that doesn't change the fact that Ron Paul is and has always been Ron Paul, and he doesn't bend with the wind. Couple that with the fact that on almost all domestic issues, he rarely utters a word with which I find strong disagreement.
In a field led by Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, backed up by the brain synapse-challenged Rick Perry, the truth-challenged Michele Bachmann, followed by Rick Santorum (who I personally like) and Jon Huntsman... I no longer see Ron Paul as the worst of that bunch. Not by a long shot.
All I know now is it looks like the two guys I trust and like the very least and who reek the most of establishment politics are in the lead. Would Ron Paul be a worse conservative's choice as president than Mitt Romney? Newt Gingrich? I don't see a strong case to be made. Romney and Gingrich are the worst of the worst in my opinion. Ron Paul comes somewhere after them.