Either learn from history or shut the frak up already

From Mercer Tyson writing on The American Thinker:

Bad-mouthing Romney is like saying Ronald Reagan was a failure because he didn't colonize China.  Romney is a conservative who will work well with a GOP Congress.  His flipflopedness is both on purpose and irrelevant.  Time to get off his back.

Previously I wrote an article on American Thinker promoting the ticket of Romney and Rubio, and boy, did Romney and I get soundly thumped by many of the AT readers.  I consider the attacks on Romney from conservatives to be unwarranted, incorrect, and self-destructive.

[. . .]

While I love Herman Cain, I fall into the group of those who are Cain skeptics; people who say they like Cain but don't think he can win. 

IF Mr. Tyson could point back to electoral victories by Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush in his reelection campaign, Bob Dole and John McCain then he would have a point.  He would have an even better point if he could speak of how Ronald Reagan (who was painted as an insane warmonger by the MSM) went down to a humiliating defeat against Jimmy Carter in 1980.  He would cement his point if he could point to the polls which showed John McCain ahead until choosing uber-conservative Sara Palin to be his running mate after which his campaign collapsed.

But he cannot do any of those things.  RINO moderates Ford, H.W. Bush, Dole and McCain lost (the elder Bush won when he was perceived as Reagan's third term but lost when he proved that he was no conservative).  George W Bush was also perceived to be a true conservative when running for his first term and won reelection because he was commander-in-chief during a war which still enjoyed broad public support in the aftermath of 9/11.

Ronald Reagan, a genuine conservative, was tarred as an evil warmonger, lacking in compassion and probably senile was elected in a landslide and won reelection in an even bigger landslide.

John McCain was behind in the polls and was considered to be a joke by most on both the left and right until he picked Sarah Palin.  At that point he started running nearly even with Obama and at one point even pulled ahead.  Only the collapse of the housing bubble and beginning of the Great Recession catapulted Obama into a decisive lead.

In other words every time since 1980 we try it Mr. Tyson's way we go down in flames and every time we back a true conservative (or someone who is thought to be a true conservative) we win.

They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.

A necessary corollary to that would be that sanity is defined as expecting things to work the same way in the future as they have worked in the past.

So let us be as sane as possible and nominate the most believably and consistently  conservative candidate we can find in the expectation that he (or she) will win.