#1. I made no implication that Doolittle was not an excellent politician when it came to abortion and life issues. There are many other ways the guy could be morally compromised. Both candidates can be compromised in different ways for these criteria to play out. If indeed Doolittle is so favoring business interests that he is overlooking the moral issues assocaited to that, he could still be morally compromised while maintaining a perfect pro-life voting record.

#2. I also made no assertion that the impact must be in the form of an election victory. You’re right, any third party candidate would most likely not win. However, a Republican loss with a third party taking a significant (say 5+%) percentage of the conservative vote would definitely have an impact on how the Republican party reacted to the loss.

#3. I’m going to ignore this one for the time being as both of our opinions are just opinions that are difficult to objectively decide between. However, I think #4 is the clear dividing issue on this. I would agree that just based on “the Foley incident” and the others like it that my statement would be undefensible.

#4. This is worthy of a whole new post and I will do so in the next few days. But I’ll be clear to state that I can a VERY prinicipled stand on torture and very much believe that the Republican party has significantly morally compromised itself on the subject.

#5. Both of our statements are likely true. There is no need to start your comment with “no” as if my statement is not true. “in addition” would be more accurate.

#6. I’ve looked at the statistics and can tell you without a doubt that you are wrong about the impact of parental notification. Parental notification has almost no impact on the numbers of abortion. In fact, there is some evidence that it may INCREASE abortion rates as the two groups most likely to be accompanying a young lady to the abortion clinic is the father or the mother’s parents (who don’t want the “shame” of a pregnant teenage daughter).

Beyond that, I did not assert that a small percentage of abortions was acceptable. In fact, the whole post is premised on the idea that at times one must allow evil to happen (as in the case of the Just War Criteria) so as to eliminate greater evil in the long run. What I said was that it was a small percentage, which I’m sure you won’t disagree with. It’s like 0.5% of abortions.

#7 This really is a re-iteration of #6 if we keep the subject limited to abortion. What muddies the water are the other issues that rightly fall under pro-life like Euthenasia and Cloning. However, since my statement was specifically related to aborion (“the issue” in the quote you give), I think we’re really back to #6.

Wynette, I want to make it clear yet again that I have not made up my mind and this post was as much a thought experiment to help me understand the criteria I must meet before going to the extreme of voting for a 3rd candidate. They are quite a lofty set of requirements and if I had to guess, by the time I am done I will find that they will not be met and I’ll be voting for Doolittle. However, I think it is important to lay down the criteria and go through the thought process of whether those criteria are appropriate, before subjecting the specifics of the current race to those criteria.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts (and others who read this blog) about whether the criteria I’ve developed are in and of themselves good criteria, separate from whether any particular race meets those criteria.

You make several yet-to-be-substantiated assertions that I bring into question:

#1 “Both candidates must be signficantly morally compromised.” Please compare Congressman Doolittle’s 100% rating by the National Right to Life organization to Mr. Brown’s statement on abortion and Mr. Warren’s Libertarian Party’s position on abortion.

#2 “Voting for the 3rd party has a reasonable chance of making an impact.” In reality, Mr. Warren, a life guard with no political experience, received a paltry 672 votes, compared to Doolittle’s 63,000+ and Brown’s 26,000+ votes in the primary run-off. Therefore, a vote for Mr. Warren will, in effect, only assure the election of Mr. Brown.

#3 “The Republican party is suffering right now from unchecked power”. I disagree, for I see a party suffering from a very weakened position due to the immorality of a few disgusting individuals, which taints the whole party’s platform and electoral success on November 7th.

#4 “This inexcusable move towards allowing torture is an example of it.” Could you elaborate on the “torture” strategies supported by Republicans to defend our country which you find inexcusable?

#5 “A significant setback in the 2006 elections would force them to re-think their positions and I believe would help to purify the party.” No, a loss in November’s election will irreparably damage our country and further erode what little is left of the Sanctity of Human Life as I agree with you that “…the most aggregious moral abuse in this country is abortion…”

#6 You say, “Abortion is only minimally relevant issue for the House of Representatives at this juncture. 95% of all abortions are protected by Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. The partial birth abortion bans and parental notification laws although good, only affect a small percentage of abortions.” I strongly disagree with this assertion. Parental notification laws have proven very effective at reducing the number of abortions amongst our most vulnerable teenage population and the atrocity of partial birth abortions should not be legal, period. No “small percentage” of partial birth abortions is morally acceptable nor supportable.

#7 You assert, “But that also means that my Congressman has a VERY small impact on the issue and therefore the increased evil that a pro-abortion Congressman could do is minimal.” I strongly disagree. The National Right to Life lists numerous critical issues in which Congressman Doolittle has courageously voted to protect the sanctity and dignity of all human life. The damage that either of the other two candidates could impart, if elected, is VERY significant.

I earnestly await your own conclusion on whom to vote for in the 4th District. If your political scrutiny is as thorough as your football analysis, then I can be assured of a very persuasive post.