THIS! It’s such odd behavior, so perverse, that it makes it impossible to take foxmarks’ comments as anything other than a twisted, albeit articulate, demand for attention. Ah, the internet, such wonders it contains…

I have listed the possible explanations I can think of for your attitude. That is not pettiness, it is coming up with theories about the function that this incredibly defeatist and destructive stance might serve for you. Perhaps I am wrong about your motivations; that’s why I was careful to say my list was only a “gut feeling,” and to use the qualifying word “might” two times, when I wrote, “But my gut feeling about what might motivate a foxmarks or someone else who holds similar views might be some combination of one or more of these things…”

Your attitude is more outrageous to me than that of a straightforward Obama-supporter. At least he/she has the courage of his convictions. You, on the other hand, are voting against what you believe in order to hasten some sort of apocalypse you think is inevitable.

And by the way, focusing on the presidency vs. more local races is not an either/or proposition. I usually write about national issues because my readers are from around the country and even the world; this is not a blog with a local focus. But that doesn’t mean that I, or readers here, care about national issues and candidates to the exclusion of local ones.

Plus, when last I checked, the Constitution gives the president veto power over laws enacted by Congress. Therefore, no matter how hard you might work to elect a member of the House or Senate, it matters not unless the Republicans gain control of 2/3 of each house, if Obama gets re-elected. He would be able to override every single thing they pass, including repeal of Obamacare. What is it about that that you don’t understand? He will also get to appoint liberal SCOTUS justices who will be young enough to control the Court for decades to come. What about that don’t you understand?

Or does your crystal ball say that would be a good thing?

We have to take back our government and its buildings brick by brick by brick. That is incremental. We will not get it right every time (and oddly neither will you); incrementalism is the way of lasting human progress, not convulsions. We had a sufficient dose of convulsions in the last century, and if Obama prevails, we will have another.

Languorous is not for me.

But since you’ve diagnosed my psychological disorders, I may as well build your case study.

Baklava stands in for a point of view that R&R is all we have, so that’s what we have to support. I don’t make the argument that you are better off voting for SpongeBob SquarePants than a lesser evil. At least not this time.

I say the R&R ticket is doomed. But it is *not* all we have. We have Congressional and local races, as I touted earlier. The obsessive focus on the Presidency is a symptom of how far we are from the Framers’ Federalism. You don’t return to the Constitution by ignoring it.

We’re supposed to be focusing on the government and politicians closest to us. All politics are local, right?

Each of your particular jurisdictions doesn’t have to suffer so hard as the bastions of the urban left will. You can make your local gov’ts work better, along conservative ideals. So, no way is R&R all we have, nor is it our only hope.

If you subscribe to gradualism, work that on your county board and Statehouse. If I think too much (too hard?), I wonder why we take advice on national races from those who can’t even reshape their own States?

Are we really that wise to listen to the pundits and opinion leaders from Massachusetts, New York and California? If any one of those were not spotted to the Democrats, the R&R ticket would have a chance.

Can Romney deliver MA’s electoral votes? Or, maybe he’s moved…can he deliver CA to the GOP?

Tell me again who is Reaganesque…?

(f) a condescending sense of their own superior ability to reason and prognosticate

It’s funny when I get cracks about being young/immature. I have thought your thoughts and made your arguments. Heck, I still make some of them when I battle the Progs. If anyone can make a political change from liberal to conservative, I hope they can keep an open mind. Conservatism (whatever that means!) is not an end. It is a phase.