GoSlash27,
Arguably, voting for the lesser of evils is what we are "forced" to do, so I am not saying it is not considered by many to be a normal way of doing things. My contention is that between "voting for the lesser of evils" and "voting for the candidate whom you agree with", I believe the latter is the way to go. Voting for the lesser of evils has gotten us where we are today. As long as our political system is controlled and dominated by two major parties which are simply different feathers of the same bird... we will slowly slide into a socialist state because, as is evident this election cycle, both parties are making socialist positions important to their campaigns.
As for the political middle... in my opinion, that is where the people go who will go along with anything for the sake of unity. I don't believe that is a good idea. For example, I don't want to have unity with someone who wants a nanny state. As you can see in this election cycle, McCain is gravitating to the middle and this has brought us....
-- Corporate taxation in the name of global warming (which is a farce)
-- Amnesty for illegals
-- Possibly tax hikes
When a conservative sacrifices his/her principles, it usually means that the socialist got his/her way because they rarely sacrifice their principles.