Addendum: A Vote for Paul, Huckabee, etc. is a Vote for McCain

I have a lot of friends who have talked themselves into the Paul camp, and I've heard lots in media - though thankfully I know not a single one personally - who are marching in lockstep behind Huckabee oblivious to the world around them, just like those two linear-obsessives in Dr. Seuss' "The Zax."

Allow me to amplify unapologetically that nagging little voice that's likely been flitting around your mind for some time now:

There is not a proverbial snowball's chance of Ron Paul nor of Mike Huckabee getting anywhere near a GOP primary win in the year 2008. Period, full stop, everyone out of the pool.

Read that again.

Got it?

Good, that means we've both got hold of the reality of the situation. And don't let's be blabbering about "Oh, well, with that defeatist attitude, of course nobody could win."

Hey, not all the Power of Positive Thinking nor Strenuous Media Spin nor Irrational Exuberance nor Drunken Unison Caterwauling nor Mystical Incantations By Firelight on behalf of those guys will alter reality. "You can twist perceptions/reality won't budge," as the Professor has written. (There is a Rush lyric for every situation in life, but this one works overtime...)

So, given the fact that the guy you're planning on voting for remains without...the proverbial snowball's chance of winning so much as the presidency of an ant farm, what would casting such a vote mean in practice?

Simple: It means a vote for John McCain.

And that, in turn... To recap in as much depth as my current supply of Pepto-Bismol will allow:

-> This is the same John McCain whose "Campaign Finance Reform" (read: Political Censorship,) legislation has run the priceless First Amendment of my Constitution and yours through the equivalent of a fine-pitch industrial paper shredder;

-> This is the same John McCain who once openly, now quietly (for some reason) has pledged his sycophantic fealty to the Climate Armageddon Industry and its faith-based "global warming" construct, at precisely the time when it is crucial we have at least a modicum of opposition to them.

-> This is the same John McCain who straight-facedly compared drilling for oil in a tiny sliver of the ANWR wastelands to drilling for oil in the Grand Canyon - at a time when every barrel of oil that McCain-type environmentalists force American producers not to produce means yet more oil revenue to OPEC. You know, to those kind folks who're fond of al-Qaida, Hugo Chavez, and the public torture of teenaged girls as punishment for being rape victims;

-> This is the same John McCain who in 2006 led the infamous "Gang of 14," siding with Democrat Patrick "WherrrzMyDrinkhh" Leahy & Co.'s filibusters of Bush Administration judicial appointments. This was, recall, at a time of an unprecedented quantity of judicial vacancies during rare GOP control of the Presidency and both Houses of Congress. Thanks to Traitor McCain, most of those vacancies remain...vacant, with both Houses of Congress now controlled by Democrats and the very real possibility of a White House presided over by a Democrat - or that very "Gang Of 14" leader himself. Imagine the militant lunacy that is the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals, expanded across courtrooms nationwide;

-> This is the same John McCain who for years has fought for higher taxation, who has parroted Marxian class warfare lingo in his virtually every statement on tax policy, and who as recently as last week voiced the contemptible dichotomy of " patriotism over profits."
This while he dares compare himself to President Reagan, no less.

Need I go on?

-> This is the politician to whom a Paul vote or a Huckabee vote goes, inescapably. As I've indicated clearly in a number of posts over the last year, Romney is far from being anything better than a placeholder in my book, and was at least three notches down on my ordered list of the original ten GOP candidates.

But if you take Michael Hurd's August 2004 article "Election 2004: Looking Ahead While Living Today" and apply it to the present situation with the particulars substituted, you have essentially the same argument in favor of voting for Romney, not just in the general election but in tomorrow's primary. Only in this case the primary opponent is a militant authoritarian-collectivist calling himself a "Republican," adding a whole new dimension of intellectual perversity to the mix.

Finally, if arch anti-Republican McCain is somehow jammed into the Republican nomination, the only principled choice left will be to pull a Peikoff - i.e. vote for whichever Democrat has the best chance of defeating him - in this instance with ample justification.

'Gonna be an interesting 24 hours - hopefully not in the 'Chinese' sense...