[TheRealThing]

I never voted for a third party when Obama ran. I voted for McCain and I voted for Romney. I never said otherwise. In fact, I have explained repeatedly that I have held my nose and voted for Dole, McCain, and Romney and then resolved to never again give my vote to somebody who does not earn it.

Voting always boils down to principle. I don't understand how a pro-life conservative could ever believe facilitating the nomination of Donald Trump by failing to vote against him was okay. Out of all 17 Republican primary candidates, Trump is the only one who has a long history of donating to liberal, pro-abortion Democrats. Trump has flip-flopped and been caught lying so many times, ignoring his past deeds and accepting his word that he is now pro-life and will remain pro-life once elected is just not good enough for me.

Trump only trailed Hillary by 3 points in the last Virginia poll, but there is no way that he will do better here than Romney did. The state now has crooked Democrat, Terry McCauliffe, as its governor, and thousands of convicted felons recently had their voting rights automatically restored. I will be surprised if Trump does not lose Virginia by double digits.

Regardless of the politics here, I will never vote for a presidential candidate who I don't believe is fit for the office - but I will vote for the most qualified conservative candidate on my ballot.

You asked me the difference between skipping the Kentucky Primary and voting 3rd party in the general. How you voted differed from the case you laid out in support of voting for a 3rd party candidate, but like I said, I didn't give you any grief about it then and wouldn't have done so this time just on that basis.

But things have not been restricted to that basis. You've been running a campaign against the presumptive Republican nominee right here on BGR. I have disagreed with your methods and many of your conclusions because they require one to accept as fact that Mr Trump has been lying about his transition into the conservative view. I say there is no way to prove that, this side of a Trump Presidency. And since many if not all conservatives must make some kind of similar journey to the light in any event, and given the certainty of the alternative this time around, we must give him a chance to do what he promises.

I have gone on to cite people who are widely respected in conservative circles who I believe agree with my position, and as I have attempted to point out, there is no shortage of those of that mindset. Nobody on the planet denies that one of only two people will step into the Oval Office next January. There is no other possibility in the realm of the remotely plausible. That being the case, if you can say with a shred of honesty that you don't understand how a pro-life conservative could support Trump, I can say the following whole heartedly. I do not understand how a pro-life conservative could or would, take the time to campaign extensively and frankly aggressively, against the only candidate who has any chance whatever to win, and who represents that pro-life conservative's stated positions.

I'm not at all surprised that both sides of the aisle coalesced to oppose Trump in what I had predicted to be an unholy alliance, but even I underestimated the intensity and the spectacle of it. Republicans should unite behind the presumptive nominee, and in my view given current events, so should the Democrats. Our quality of life and the health of our country is at stake, and in that light I believe this to be the time for patriots to stand up and make service to their nation the reality, rather than campaign rhetoric. Ted Cruz should offer his considerable gifts in service to the people, and throw his hat in the VP ring to heal the national rift and provide the guidance he said he was all about a couple of months back. That rift BTW, is as real at the national level as it is on this site. But thankfully, I hear more and more of Trump's one time staunch opponents, now publicly recognizing the actual singularity of choice with which America is faced.