Anyone who can't explain the constitution underpinnings of how he would govern is a liberal.

They're not quite the same. Republicans are to the right of Democrats in the same way that Oakland is closer to the Atlantic Ocean than San Francisco. But what if your heart is in Independence Hall?

You may be right that G and P failed on their own merits. But let me suggest these alternatives: G lost becuase the ghost of Saint Kennedy was simply unbeatable that year. P lost because he was running as a Constitution-thumping Americanist conservative in a liberal party. The only way to know if he could have been elected would be for him to get nominated, and among social-democrats like the Republicans, that wasn't going to happen.

GodsLaw - Permit me to offer this as a summary: whether you boil the frog quickly or slowly, it still dies.

GodsLaw - Permit me to offer this as a summary: whether you boil the frog quickly or slowly, it still dies.

Taft, Goldwater and Paul were all as flawed as the next guy. But I believe that each of them would at least tried to restore America to her rightful condition of a republic with a constitutionally-constrained government. But last year, the Republicans nominated someone who couldn't see that Medicare and Obamacare are just senior and junior members of the same monstrous species. Either that or he did know it and he was just another shifty politican who'd say anything to anyone for a vote.

VOTE FOR ENGELS! HE'S NOT QUITE AS RED AS MARX! That's been the rallying cry of the Republican Party for three or four decades now, and America keeps sinking ever deeper into the nanny-statist muck. I love my country, my heritage and my freedom far to much to give my ballot to the ghost of Franklin Roosevelt, regardless of which party he's haunting.

Next question - why? Why send a liberal to beat a liberal when it's just going to get you a liberal government?

Still holding out for "yes" or "no."

Is it acceptable for a convervative to vote for a big-spending, big-government liberal who happens to be enrolled in the Republican Party? Yes or no, please.

I won't ask anyone's age, but l'll say that l'm 52. That's old enough to know from experience that the leadership of the Republican Party will resist true Constitution-thumping American conservatism tooth and nail all the time and every time. You don't get rid of them. You accept that these liberals own this party and launch a conservative alternative.