It is a long way to November and hopefully the McCain campaign will be able to change my mind.  Today I don’t feel that I can vote for McCain based on my principals.  The first instinct is that you do not reward bad behavior.  Maverick John McCain has done too many things that go against my conservative principals (campaign finance reform, immigration bill, gang of 14, etc.). 

On social issues he has never been an advocate of right to life.  He says he supports it but never stands up for it.  In fact he went out of his way to write a brief against Wisconsin Right to Life because they wanted to run ads about candidate stands on abortion.  He also thinks embryonic stem cell research is ok. 

On fiscal issues he is against wasteful spending which is great, but he did NOT support the Bush tax cuts.  Sure now he thinks they are a good idea but where was he when it counted.  I don’t like pork-barrel spending either but what is McCain going to do to keep the economy going and keep entitlements from crushing us?

His strong stance is the war, but I don’t even trust him on that.  Yes, he has supported the war in Iraq, but I don’t have any faith that when it comes to long term war on terror that he is committed.  He wants to shut down Gitmo and have those prisoners come into the U.S. prison system where they will get habeas corpus rights and presumably contact with other prisoners.  When Bush needed congress to draft authority and procedures for dealing with the detainees McCain led the charge to give them Geneva Convention rights.  Finally, regarding aggressive interrogation we know that McCain is against that.  That is why I don’t trust him on the war because I don’t know if he will protect us in the end.

So how can McCain get my vote in November?  He needs to reconcile his differences with me and other conservatives.  The big question is will he swallow his pride and make peace with us or do as he has done the last 7 years and say we need to make peace with him.  Listening to talk radio today I don’t know if the McCain camp will do it.  I heard McCain supporters say that talk radio needs to apologize to McCain for being mean to him the last few weeks and that McCain is a true conservative.  Also heard the Governor of MN who is long time McCain supporter say on the Hugh Hewitt show that the “gang of 14” was not a bad deal for us.  Let me give you a clue don’t keep jabbing your finger in my eye and telling me it doesn’t hurt.  He also said that if we look at his record we would see a lot of things we like.  What do you think we have been doing for the last few weeks?  We have looked long and hard at his record and we don’t like it at all!

McCain needs to apologize for his many positions that have angered the conservative base.  We then need assurances that McCain will appoint conservative judges, secure the border and under no circumstances is there a pathway to citizenship, fight for tax relief for all Americans, not go soft on the war on terror and stay in step with conservative social issues.  If McCain can not do these things he will not get the conservative vote and will lose the Presidential election.  If he really wants to be President he has a choice to make.