Clint Eastwood is backing Romney:
Eastwood tells The Associated Press that he’s backing Romney because, in Eastwood’s words, “I think the country needs a boost.”
Good for him. Eastwood is enough of a non-ideological Republican that he might be able to help win over some independents, without whom Romney (and thus the GOP) will lose. I realize that a lot of Republicans are perfectly OK with Romney losing, because they don’t consider his ideology pure enough, but I think putting ideology ahead of winning is a big mistake — especially at this point. I say this as someone who has held my nose and voted for people whose ideology is not pure enough for my liking for decades. Their ideology has never been pure enough for me and never will be. In elections, I have to put winning ahead of ideology. Otherwise, I would either stay home or vote the strict Libertarian Party ticket. (Gary Johnson is of course far more to my liking than Mitt Romney.)
The funny thing is that even if you put ideology first, whose ideology would that be? Your own, more principled ideology? I don’t know of any candidate with whose ideology I like more than my own; does that mean I should not vote? Voting is inherently a compromise with ideology, and as a libertarian I have understood this for decades. What I cannot understand is why others don’t. I’m sure some people will deride Eastwood as a “RINO.” And why? Because he does not align with their thinking 100%? How do they ever think they’ll win a national election? The answer is they don’t care. They put ideology first. Even Ronald Reagan would be a RINO by today’s “conservative” standards.
If they vote (and a lot of them do), the independent voters are going to vote for either Romney or Obama. Granted that these people are not ideologically pure by anyone’s standards (including mine), it might be worth considering whether it matters who they vote for.
I think it ought to matter more.
Much as I don’t like it, my own ideological principles might have to wait.
(Oh, the horror.)
Comments
2 responses to “Go ahead! Make my ideology!”
I would point out that Reagan got called a RINO or similar a lot by the “Real Conservatives”(TM) of the day.
Your ideological principles don’t have to wait. You just have to accept that you might get them in smaller increments then you might like. See how well the gun-nuts did. Amazing progress over twenty years. Still a lot of laws against guns, but still, a huge rollback.
The political process does work, but Libertarians are always going to be at a disadvantage because your best don’t want to serve in government and you can’t make them. It’s one of the reasons the Libertarian party has done so poorly (And, of course, the whole “Winner Take All” thing)…
Robert,
Good point but it is even worse than that. The Democrats and Progressives are winning on the libertarian’s signature issue – drug legalization.
I belong to an anti-prohibition list and get excoriated regularly if I express libertarian or God Forbid pro TEA Party sentiments. The list owner unloaded on me privately for my pro-TEA sentiments (all I said was that I was going to convert them because I can speak their language). So I asked to be taken off the list. But it is a “Hotel California” list. You can check out any time you like but you can never leave. Heh.