Can a good Republican vote for a RINO ("Republicans In Name Only")? I’ll tell you at the end of this rumination, but first it’s important to know that a good Republican should never vote for a RINO in a primary election.
This whole subject area is more than just a problem for Republicans: It is a feature of modern democratic electoral politics. It is emblematic of the struggle between statism/socialism and their opposites, political/economic freedom. Today the Democratic Party is the party of statism and socialism. Socialism is the economic analogue to statism, which is a political phenomenon….
Thus, where the Democrats offer the politics of statism, the Republicans are supposed to offer the opposite, ii.e. limited government and low taxes as mandated by the U.S. Constitution (statism is the opposite of the Constitution, and has always been at war with it).
In the economic realm, where the Democrats offer socialism, Republicans are supposed to offer the opposite, economic freedom, usually referred to as free enterprise (sometimes called "capitalism").
The Democrats are always working toward their twin goals of statism and socialism. The Republicans, on the other hand, sometimes offer a choice, sometimes not. And sometimes even when they do offer a choice, they often offer only a pale echo of the Democrats. Here’s why:
It is a given that most people—given the facts and preferring to lives their lives as they see fit in both the political and economic realms—will vote for political freedom over statism, and economic freedom over socialism. Statism and socialism are the tools of the political/government/ruling class. When they win, the result is mass theft, greed, misery, and tyranny. Thus, while socialist Democrats often masquerade as conservatives in order to get elected, they vote for statism and socialism after they’re elected, regardless of who elected them. More often, they simply run on what they "really" believe in, and the Democratic base of voters—people who believe that government can and will give them "somehting for nothing"—vote them into office.
Statist/socialist Republicans, on the other hand (aka RINO’s), must always pretend to support political and economic freedom when running for office, because that’s what Republican voters demand: Limited government, low taxes, free enterprise, and personal responsibility. So when the RINO gets elected and then "votes socialist," he or she betrays the voters and generates resistance from them.
That’s where the GOP Civil War comes from. It means that primay elections for Republicans are just as important as general elections (more important, some would say). This is why the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire (RLCNH) devotes as much time, energy, and other resrources to GOP primariy elections as it does to general elections. It is essential to "root out the RINO’s" in the primary elections. If not removed in the primaries, and they win in the general election, such people give support, votes, and the illusion of bipartisanship (aka "bipartisan cover") to the statist, socialist projects of the Democrats.
Now back to the original question: Should Republicans vote for RINO’s in general elections? There’s an important rumination on the subject by Erick Erickson over at RedState.com, with respect to Carly Fiorina, GOP candidate for senator in California. Recommend you read it. (The answer, by the way, is usually…yes. The solution—so we don’t have to face such quandaries—is to eliminate the RINO’s in the primaries.)