Gollum. Gollum.
But seriously...
I have seen a lot of people saying that We All Have to Tow The Line Or We're Feeding Into the Bush/Rove Machine. Thou Shalt Not Besmirch Our Candidate.
What that says is that Dissent=Defeat
And, that may be true.
After all, the Republicans, since Reagan, do not diss other Republicans. They'd march lockstep into the fiery furnaces of Hell, if whoever was the Leader of the Republican Party said so. And, as they represent a hair over 50% of the United States, we would all be dragged into the furnaces with them.
And we may suffer that fate.
However, to say that in order to defeat the party of blind obedience, we must create our own IS LUDICROUS. What it guarantees is that -- in time -- there will be two opposing parties marching us lockstep to Hell from two different directions.
We must be smart enough to stand up and let our minds guide us. We must have enough passion to let our hearts guide us. We must have enough courage to let our souls guide us.
If we sacrifice our minds, our hearts and our souls in the name of Victory, we have sown the seeds for our own defeat.
How do I know?
It's staring us all right in the eye.
It's what we're fighting against.
Just look: The Republicans have made that deal with the devil and see what it got them? They have a leader whom they follow blindly who flies in the face of that which they hold dear (fiscal conservatism, libertarianism, small government). He can destroy them piecemeal because he knows they will rally around him.
We cannot allow that to become us.
The Republican Party is the party of narrowminded likethinking people who hate. The Democratic party is the party of a patchwork of nonmajority bigtent folks who argue among ourselves. And we must remain that, or we sacrifice who we are and we run the risk of electing someone who flies in the face of all we hold dear.