No…

How’s that for a quick response?

Seriously I don’t know why people keep asking this, the answer is simple, not any time soon. The more likely outcome of the continued revelations that high-ranking GOP officials are corrupt and the antithesis of everything they told voters they were is probably the one we saw in 2006, values voters will stay home or go to the polls and vote for the few candidates they trust and leave the rest blank. The idea, which as I mentioned yesterday seems to be Barack Obama’s strategy, that conservative-right-wing-republicans will flee the GOP as a whole anytime soon is asinine. Where would they possibly go?

We’ve seen third parties spring up but at this point I think most people on the far-right know that sometimes you have to be pragmatic and a third party catering specifically to their agenda won’t receive enough votes to win the presidency. Same on the far-left. The rest of the voters who aren’t pragmatists and will only vote for candidates that strictly adhere to their beliefs simply won’t turn up this cycle. Will they go Democrat? No, of course not, why would they?

Let me put it another way. Far-left activists want out of Iraq and in 2006 wanted an end to Congressional corruption. So they elected Democrats. Today we have Congressional corruption and no chance of leaving Iraq anytime soon. So will those voters suddenly turn Republican? Will they put Alito/Roberts bumper stickers on their cars and resurrect Rick Santorum? No of course not, they won’t even go out of their way to praise Arlen Specter.

There is almost nothing in the Democratic Party that would appeal to the ‘values voter’ contingent of the Republican Party. Democratic candidates are bringing up religion and trying to frame ‘values’ in their terms. Love for the environment, fellow man, etc. Seriously, nice try but that isn’t what this block is looking for.

This is a very blunt BUT very true statement. Far-right Republicans who are fed up with their politicians being closeted homosexuals aren’t going to go vote for the party that wants to bring gay marriage to all the states. They are disenchanted because their politicians lied to them about being homosexuals, not simply because they lied but also because they are homosexuals. If they had known the truth, they would have voted for the non-homosexual candidate in the primaries. (Go ahead and send your hate-mail to geek [at] electiongeek.com)

Like the song says “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need”. Values voters needed to realize they couldn’t hold their candidates up to such a saintly standard. Just because someone speaks from your viewpoint doesn’t mean power cannot corrupt them or that they are not mortal. In this the block of values voters are getting what they needed and not what they wanted.

There are however candidates out there, good and honorable Republican candidates who believe in the same things values voters do. They aren’t going to be perfect but they aren’t going to be as disgraceful as Senator Craig appears to be. I think we can all agree soliciting a prostitute in a public bathroom is pretty low in the layering of pond scum, you cannot write off an entire party from one example of depravity that should be denounced by both parties.

In this the dilemma is simple to get out of. These Republican values voters can either support candidates who represent their world-view but whom they recognize are mere mortals with flaws and earthly trappings of they can support Democrats. Democrats who are also mortal but who come to the table with almost no identical ideological, philosophical or political beliefs. Which do you think they will chose? Yeah, me too.