So why are we being stubborn holdouts for the perfect ticket? It hasn't happened, again. All one can do is perform a little calculus as the issues and facts parade before us and go for the team that is closer or even slightly closer to our own desires.

Other than the possibility of McCain foolishly pursuing hegemony around the world, McCain is closer to our side than is Obama. And even with Obama we are still going to have someone who thinks we should be the world's policeman. You can count on his signing on to United Nation's adventures and foolish treaties that usurp US sovereignty. With McCain having a Democratic congress to contend with I doubt that he will be able to engage in much imperialism.

It pains me to see so many of you whom I respect being such absolutists. Most of you are agreeing that Obama would be worse and yet you are still holding out. For what? Look, we all know the Bush years have been a disaster but at least we got a Supreme Court that recognizes the 2nd Amendment means what it says. And didn't Bush appointees uphold the partial birth abortion ban? I hate to expouse situation ethics but that's the choice we have before us.

"I’d like to hear what people think about Bobby Jindal, an intellectual Conservative Catholic, or so I hear. What that means, I do not know, but it sounds good on its face."

After his well pubicized venture at playing exorcist (albeit an amateur one) while in college, Jindal increasingly looks like another snake-waving, tambourine-banging nut job like Carter, Bush or Palin.

Although it's best to have a man of faith in office, I'm suspicious of anyone who indulges in any religion's more bizarre practices. And, given that the worst two presidents of the last forty years, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, were wont to embrace religious indulgence more bizarre than most other recent Presidents, I'm not anxious to see someone similar back in The White House any time soon...even if he is a Republican or a Catholic.

In the end, John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin was his expedient and desperate effort to appease conservatives long enough to help him get elected. But conservatives would be silly to expect much from McCain if he is elected. The war in Iraq will continue "until victory." He will cut taxes "when I can." He continues to support illegal immigration amnesty when he and the border governors(Governors Schwartzenegger, Napolitano, Richardson and Perry) declare the borders are secure.

For the knee-jerk Republicans out there who salivate for a McCain-Palin victory in November I give this warning- fear the fall-out of a McCain presidency. He does not care for the Republican Party as an institution but only as springboard to power. McCain will rip apart his party about as badly as did Richard Nixon once upon a time. Does a Republican Party with 38 senators and 160 congressmen staring into a bleak future of 2013 with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama being innaugurated stir your fancy?

If things indeed go nuclear, that won't be the case. Do you think the world community or the new axis of evil is going to just sit and do nothing if we use nukes on Iran or if we are crazy to attack Russia? They won't have to push a button or send one friigin missile to bury us, just unload all of their dollars and totally pull out of Fannie and Freddie and we are toast!!!!! Americans are going to finally reap what the neocons have sown, and Palin is the new neocon queen.

My idea is that the GOP call this election in and get ready for 2012. I think Jindal and Palin should figure talk about the future of the GOP. As for Palin, a woman, figuring in discussions about taking the reins at some future point, it is difficult to hold that she ought to be disqualified because she is a woman. There are ways of getting around that fact. Thankfully, the U.S. Marine Corps and US Army are run by men, and men run and indeed comprise the Joint Chiefs who would essentially run a war during a Palin administration.

Not to fret about a woman becoming commander in chief...

Many thanks to Messrs. Fleming, Wolf and Richert for this great forum.

"John McCain supports additional funding for embryonic stem-cell research, including the creation of new lines, which requires the destruction of embryos."

Additionally, whereas GOP officials would have opposed any expansion of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research under Obama, under a McCain administration they'll willingly give it their blessing because it's their man in The Oval Office supporting it.

Conservatives voting McCain-Palin will be accomplices in conservatism's destruction. And, ironically, with Palin now the nominee for the office of VP, they'll now be gleeful accomplices in its destruction.

I don’t see how Obama could do any worse than what we already have short of (Chinaesque) enforcing some x-child policy.

Public funding for abortion. It's one of Obama's policy proposals, and it's part of the Democratic platform.

Beyond that, though, you're right.