The "pay the piper" principle

I think bucyrus' argument is just that if the party members who donated are upset by him switching tickets, then they punish him by not supporting him in the general election. In theory, that's how it should work. Its the same situation as if a representative is elected and, while in office, defies the desires of his constituency, or a representative is elected on a certain issue, and changes his opinion when it comes time to vote.

In any case, those situations might be improper also, but their acceptable on the premise that the representative may have to choose to go with his conscience. If a candidate decides that his conscience dictates him to make a point of fighting the party establishment, for instance, because he thinks there's something wrong or untoward or unfair in the way he was denied a nomination, one might argue its similarly acceptable to challenge them then and there in the general election.

That's how it should work, anyway, and the modern primary process just complicates it.

My most strenuous objection must be to your implication that Mark Twain would disagree with me, or that he wouldn't LOVE to cite the tough sh!t principle. As an English major and long-time Twain fan, I demand you come up with a plausible argument for why Mark Twain, of all people, would be more troubled by a politician who quit his party to run as independent than he would by a party-loyal politician.

I for one am certain that he'd see it just as I do, as no more than entertainment. Twain would most certainly take delight in sanctimonious complaints that supposedly outlined the high-minded principles that preserve party hegemony.

That's nice. Then they can fund his campaign, no? By taking money given to him to run as a Republican and using it to run as an independent, what a candidate does is fraud.

This is like your "unmaking the bolognese" problem. Given the utter dominance of the parties in providing viable candidates, how sure can we really be that each given contributor gave money solely or even primarily to ensure that the candidate ran "as a republican." We can't. You always want principles to preclude pragmatism. But pragmatism stubbornly trumps principles in most instances. Human nature.

The hammer will always think that a nail exists to be of use to the hammer. But a nail exists to hold things together. People who want things held together might well join the hammer party. Hammer party loyalists will always think that the members of the party are devotees are hammers. But most of them aren't. They are devotees of holding things together, and support hammers as useful tools.

"You're so vain, you probably think this election is about you," hmm? Every politician thinks that they are a better choice than anyone else. That's part of the pathology it takes to run for office.

You'll never see me disagree that politicians are pathological. You'll also never see me imply, as you do, that because someone is pathological, they must therefore be wrong. A politician can always claim that they are running as an independent for the sake of the people to save them from the crappy partisan choices. Such a claim can always be made, but whether ti flies depends on how credible the argument is to the people. Crist can make a credible claim. He may or may not be sincere. But he'll get votes based on whether it is true that the other choices are no good. This is a GOOD thing.

To be sure, a politician can run as an independent. Suppose Crist, as sitting GOP governor of Florida had announced that he'd run for Senate as an independent from the get-go. Fine by me. What he cannot do, morally, is to commit himself to the primary of a party, take money, and then switch horses in mid-stream. The money aspect was discussed above, and as for the "doing a Lieberman" part of the equation, see my comments on Huckabee's Iowa victory. Ceteris paribus, you cannot participate in the primary process, expect other participants to fall in line should you prevail, yet wash your hands and walk away if you lose. A big tent party cannot function without that willingness to accept a legitimate outcome of the legitimate nomination process.

Your money quote! The people don't really care about how well one of the two parties is able to function. Notice that a big tent party ALSO can't function when its primary goal is its own preservation and growth at the expense of what the genpub sees as its interest.

More and more Americans share this perspective every day. You argument boils down to your faith in two-party politics, and a desire to preserve its hegemony. I am fine with letting the parties try to enforce their will and loyalty oaths upon independent-minded leaders who have the temerity to buck party dominance. But I'm among the folks who would take such efforts as more evidence that the party dominance is a problem.

Oh well. Not the first time that what I see as problem you see as the solution. I don't think we'll get better leadership and governance is the parties get more power. I don't think loyal principled partisanship is a solution. You, as a loyal partisan, DO think it's a solution. Me a disloyal nonpartisan, I don't. Makes sense. What you think is a feature I think is a bug.