Some mornings I wake up and, for a minute or two, I think that I must have been dreaming that there are conservatives who hate John McCain so much that, come November, they intend to stay home and let Bill Clinton’s wife or Jeremiah Wright’s surrogate nephew become president of the United States. But then I realize it’s not a dream, and that’s when the nightmare really begins.

Recently, I wrote a piece in which I stated a few of the reasons why I think McCain should be elected. I ended with a notion for a bumper-sticker: “Better an Imperfect Republican Than a Perfect Socialist”. But, still, I heard from a number of disgruntled right-wingers who vowed not to sully their principles by helping to elect a candidate they regarded as indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

I will repeat for the rest of you what I replied to these people. Granted, I don’t agree with Sen. McCain about amnesty for illegal aliens. But his position is no worse than that of the Democrats, and at least I’m confident that he’s opposed to the illegals having the right to vote in our elections. Democrats, as we all know, are for universal suffrage -- and that includes felons locked up in jails and people buried in cemeteries.

On the plus side of the ledger, McCain has never voted to increase taxes. Initially, he voted against Bush’s tax cuts, but that was because he wanted them tied to cuts in spending. However, when he lost that battle, he voted to make the tax cuts permanent. He is also leading the fight against earmarks.

This man, whom some conservatives regard as a RINO or even a closet liberal, is pro-life, pro-second amendment, pro-Israel and pro-military. Furthermore, unlike the Democrats, he recognizes that Islamic fundamentalists have declared war on us and every other democracy, and it’s not a war he intends to lose.

Some of those people who dismiss McCain do so because he helped create the Gang of 14. At the time, I, too, was irate with him. Because I was so angry with the Democrats who were using the power of the filibuster to block Bush’s judicial appointments, I was hoping the Republicans would resort to what was being referred to as the nuclear solution. But, much as I hate to admit it, I was wrong and McCain was right. The result of his strategy was that not only did Roberts and Alito both breeze into the Supreme Court, but because the nuclear solution wasn’t employed, Republicans in the future will have a chance to block the appointments of judicial radicals by left-wing presidents.

If I had to summarize the thinking of conservatives who oppose the election of John McCain, it’s that it took the disaster of Jimmy Carter’s presidency to usher in the golden era of Ronald Reagan. They feel that either the party will learn its lesson and become more conservative by 2012 or they will simply be forced to create a third party. Continued...