There’s no comparison at all between Romney’s simply awful record, and Daniels’ incredible record of conservative successes — none at all. You’re basing your point of view on selective and superficial traits that have nothing to do with conservatism.

This myopia, btw, is not a critique of your level of conservatism: sadly, all too many conservatives and libertarians are exactly the same, when it comes to candidate evaluation.

I’m thrilled that you and others could “trust” Bush, Romney, and others with atrocious records over folks who actually have good records. I know that you personally supported Perry, but your buddies in the movement by and large decided in an act of mass stupidity that they “trusted” Santo over Perry in numbers to propel that one-trick pony over a guy with a record that was more conservative in every way. If those are the types of candidates you get by relying on your intuition, then maybe your intuition isn’t actually worth that much when it comes to politicians, eh?

A company that had the investment record of the so-called “conservative” base would go bankrupt.

I include myself as someone who’s intuition is very hit-or-miss on these things, which is why I look at RECORDS before trusting something as fickle as my feelings.

that made it so that Perry never got anywhere in the primaries, and that prevents conservatives from going anywhere politically. Worse, the tendency to judge someone conservative based on superficial factors, and to backwards reason their conservatism, has made conservatives the Hallelujah choir to a whole slew of politicians who don’t give a damn about conservatism.

I’ve never been happy with Santo’s decision to endorse Specter, but it isn’t a reason that I thought he was un-conservative. This is consistent with my view above, where I note that I’m not thrilled with Daniels’ endorsement. That said, they are different in that there is a personal loyalty issue tied up in Daniels’ decision, and in that he’s not campaigned for or done much for Lugar besides endorse. In contrast, Santo ran all over the state and bloodied his hands for Specter. Finally, Specter was way, waaaaaay more un-conservative than Lugar (though it was wise to bring both to heel).

Personally, I don’t really care what people who have absolutely no judgement of conservative results think about Daniels’ conservatism. We’re talking about roughly the same group that discarded Perry in favor of Santorum in two states where Perry could have been competitive with social conservative support.