The first election campaign in which I could legally vote was Nixon’s 1972 re-election, and as a proud conservative, registered Republican, and Vietnam veteran (a very unpopular war) I not only voted for him but participated as a campaign volunteer and poll watcher in Chicago, where I lived at the time. I felt it would be a cold day in Hell before I’d ever consider voting for a Democrat.

I wonder if the snowshoe concession is still available Down There?

For the first time in my life, I am seriously contemplating voting for whomever the Democrat nominee is this November, rather than facilitating the further transformation of the GOP into the Dem-Lite Party by voting for McCain should he secure the nomination. I’ve been saying that for months, now, so I was way ahead of the Ann Coulter curve for those who might want to accuse me of band-wagonism, and I never say things just to hear myself make noise. Those who know me also know I mean what I say when I say it.

There are several reasons for this. First, McCain is no conservative, and has made a career out of sticking his thumb in the eyes of conservatives and even other members of his own party. If I’d spent the last twenty years calling my neighbor names, keying his car, and throwing poison meat to his dogs, I sure wouldn’t be asking for his vote if I decided to run for city council.

I read McCain as a megalomaniacal power monger totally invested in his own self-aggrandizement. He wants to be Emperor, but will settle for President… for now. I also read his disavowal of his pro-illegal alien positions and opposition to tax cuts as… well, let’s just say “insincere”. He claims to have “a practiced hand at reaching across the aisle”, and that scares me. We’ve had waaaaaaay too much of that lately; witness “scamnesty”, Scrips for Seniors, NCLB, the absurd “tax rebate”, and the rest of the terrible policy proposals that have already come out of the White House over the last few years. Further, his “reaching” has given us McCain-Feingold, McCain-Lieberman, McCain-Kennedy; far too much of that “McCain-(liberal name here)” for my taste. If you’re unhappy with Bush, you’ll hate McCain.

His supporters push McCain as a “war hero” who’d make a great war president. First of all, “hero” status isn’t earned by being shot down and captured. Second, polling of Republicans shows that the war is actually their third priority, after the economy and illegal immigration. McCain’s terrible on both those issues.

Further, in my almost 59 years on this planet, there hasn’t been a day when we haven’t been at war, of one kind or another, in many cases with enemies who were far more dangerous than a bunch of disorganized Islamo-fascists (IF) in the Middle East. The Soviet Union had the power to totally destroy us (as well as all of civilization). The idea of subsuming all other issues to the war issue is very dangerous to this country’s future. The IF can’t destroy this country, but we can certainly do it to ourselves if we sacrifice all that makes us a free and viable society on the altar of war hysteria.

As a California resident I live first-hand the results of what happens when the GOP gives up its core principles and values; California is a cautionary lesson for the rest of the country. You don’t want to live in a Californiated country; it’s not pretty.

Occasionally, the country seems to need a dose of bad medicine to learn what's good for it. LBJ gave us Nixon (conservative for his era) and Carter gave us Reagan. Those who always squawk about "eight years of Hillary/Obama" also need to remember that since FDR, the only Democrat to successfully run for office twice was Clinton, so we're only talking about another Democrat One-Term Wonder.

There’s still time. Despite all the hoopla in the liberal press, McCain didn’t do as well on Tsunami Tuesday as he needed to. With 29 states having already voted (over half) he’s only secured a little over 40% (under half) of the delegates he needs to secure the nomination. He only got 42% of the vote in California, which apportions its delegates. That’s good news. At this rate, Romney could still overtake him, or at the least we may have a brokered convention, and I don’t think that would bode well for McCain, who has made a career out of alienating his fellow Republicans. Further, most of the remaining primaries are closed, which means “independents” can’t participate, bad news for McCain.

The bottom line is that if McCain ends up as the nominee, I predict he’ll lead the GOP to a stunning defeat. He won’t get any support from conservatives, and the base is the source of the volunteer manpower and donations necessary for GOP victory.

In an era when the presidential election’s outcome is determined by a few thousand votes in a few precincts in a couple of states, McCain goes down in flames.