There is much to like about Barack Obama—he’s young, energetic, optimistic, and a great orator. Unfortunately his inexperience, along with his left-leaning tilt on critical foreign policy and economic matters, do not make him a good choice for President of the United States. An Obama Administration could lead to national security disasters and send the economy into a tail-spin.

And then there’s John McCain. Talk about the lesser of evils. The Senator is not a conservative by any description. Yes, he believes in a strong national defense and he has consistently voted pro-life, but he has a dismal record when it comes to limited Constitutional government, low tax rates, and national sovereignty. Being a conservative starts with reducing the size of government, but John McCain was the co-author of McCain-Feingold which dramatically expanded the Federal Election Commission and gave more power to the mainstream media and less to the average citizen. He voted twice against the Bush tax cuts. He teamed up with Ted Kennedy in co-sponsoring a bill that would have granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. On top of all this, he was the leader of the so-called "Gang of 14" that effectively blocked the nomination of conservative judges through their unwillingness to enforce a Constitutional approval process.

So these are our choices. Yuck!

McCain had me slightly leaning his way after his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), but then I heard the real story on his rating by the American Conservative Union (ACU). The McCain handlers had repeatedly put forward the story that he had an 82% conservative rating. That didn’t sound too bad.

Unfortunately, it was a deception orchestrated by people who should know better. It turns out that while his ACU rating over the past 20+ years in Congress is indeed 82%, his conservative rating over the last 8 years in Congress is less than 60%! That’s dismal. In fact, it’s less than the 2006 ACU rating of Democrat Ben Nelson of Colorado, and only slightly better than the 2006 rating of very liberal Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine.

So what is a conservative to do?

The ball is in Senator John McCain’s court. He can still get the votes of conservatives PROVIDING he picks a solid conservative as his running mate. If he picks a philosophical soul mate, forget it!