I wrote this for a friend, who, the night before her day to vote, rejects the notion that a vote for Carson is a vote for Trump. She offers a rallying cry to her friends on Facebook: If everyone who wanted to vote for Carson voted for him, maybe he really could win!
I tried to move on. I tried to forget about it. But I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that we have a very real spiritual enemy, and that he is very, very interested in seeing Christians (like always) divide our vote, so a principled Christian doesn't win.
So I responded to her. In fact, this is my response.
I definitely agree with your point, in principle! Four years ago, I voted for Rick Santorum when Texas finally got to vote in April, even though Romney had already won the nomination, because Romney was so morally objectionable to me that I could not, in good conscience, vote for him. In November, I did the same thing. People told me I was "really voting for Obama", but with my integrity on the line, I could not cast a vote for either of those men.
When Carson let President Obama have it, at the National Prayer Breakfast, I was excited. I hoped he would run for president. When he announced his candidacy, we looked very seriously at supporting him.
Even now, if he had built a strong campaign, even though Cruz is a more consistent Consititional conservative (for example, Carson supports forced vaccinations, came out for amnesty in the debate Thursday, and a few other things I strongly disagree with)... but if the roles were reversed today, I would be crying out from the rooftops today for Cruz supporters not to waste their votes, but to support Carson.
He's a good man, and I would have supported his bid for president.
But he is not going to win. It's like me writing in "Rick Santorum", in November of 2012. Yes, with God all things are possible. But God gave us the laws of nature, and has made it abundantly clear that we need to operate on the assumption that He honors hard work (such as Cruz did in this race), and punishes skipping campaigning to go on book tours, or burning through $60 million, which is more than any other candidate took in, spending 80% of it on... more fundraising (such as Carson did). "The slothful hand maketh poor, but the hand of the diligent maketh rich."
My question to you is: Is Cruz really so objectionable to you, that you would rather see the Christian vote split, so Trump can eek out a win?
It seems that if a Christian candidate comes along, he's just never good enough for Christians. And that's completely true. Because the Lord Jesus is never going to run for president. So we will not have a perfect candidate. Bank on it.
But could we come together and vote for someone who's really, really, really good?
I'm not sure how much research you've done on this thing, but you know me well enough to know I'm not going to lie to you. Roel and I have easily spent a hundred hours watching speeches on the Senate floor, town hall meetings, gotcha interviews, and more, this election cycle. What's more, we've been watching Cruz for four years, since we first researched him for Senate, supported him, and then sent him off to DC with our prayers that he would not do like every other conservative we've sent there - compromise.
We were praying against the Gang of 8, and we were amazed at God's amazing grace, when Cruz stood against it (political suicide), and then, against all the odds, it was defeated. We were amazed when Cruz filibustered to end ObamaCare. Every republican had finally given up hope of repealing it; they would only talk about repealing parts of it. And then Cruz came in and got the American people talking about full repeal again. I don't know if you remember that, but we couldn't believe it when he did it; it was huge.
He continued on like that. He did everything we asked him to do. What's more, he didn't just vote the right way on a bill, and then send us a letter telling us, "I voted against it, but the democrats passed it, anyway." He (and this is a direct answer to my prayers) fought to get others to change their positions and get on the right side. That's exactly how he defeated the Gang of 8 amnesty.
We Christians are so quick to judge our own... Have you rejected Cruz because he's not Jesus? If Carson were the frontrunning Christian, there would have been all kinds of allegations of lying, dirty tricks, deceit, not being a true Christian, etc., etc. Whatever it is that compells you to vote for Carson and not for Cruz, have you really researched it; are you sure you have gotten the true story?? If you have, and you're satisfied, cast your vote in good conscience! But I'm just checking to make sure that you are not being deceived by fiery darts of doubt, slung by the evil one.
I know I'm going to lose friends over this. But our children's very freedom to worship Christ is at stake here. Four thousand babies were dismembered, today. In silent, screaming torture.
This is important.
If all the people who really wanted to vote for Carson all came out and voted for him, he'd get, maybe 8-10% of the vote. Cruz would be knocked down to the teens, and would win virtually no delegates tomorrow. Trump would then have half the delegates needed to win the nomination, after only a quarter of the states have voted.
How you vote tomorrow does matter. If you find Cruz morally objectionable, then go out with both guns blazing. But just understand that you're guaranteeing we will not see a Christian win the presidency. In the fall, if things follow the course they're on, I may be right there with you, because I will not cast a vote for Trump, unless the LORD miraculously saves him between now and then.
But, at this point, I'm not sure supporting Carson's money pit of a campaign is a hill Christians should be sacrificing the republic for. Can't we unite?