It’s funny I had almost the exact same conversation about McCain with Kate and Ramesh in LA. It seems to me that conservatives should really only care about three things these days: Killing the bad guys, Cutting government, appointing good judges. On the surface, it seems McCain is well-qualified on all three. Sure, the campaign finance stuff is infuriatingly stupid, cynical and — in some respects — unconstitutional. But George W. Bush made all of those points right up until the moment he signed a CFR bill. He shugged about the unconstitutional stuff, saying that the Supreme Court would solve those problems. Isn’t that a violation of his constitutional oath? He signed a law he conceded was unconstitutional, right?

Anyway, Ramesh and Kate made a very strong case along the lines Mark makes below. While McCain is good on the war, he’s a question mark on judges and he is not in fact a government-trimmer. He’s against pork, for which he deserves a gold star, but on entitlements, immigration and especially regulation etc he’s actually quite a big government guy.

So, my search for a candidate to love continues. I can’t even support Cosmo the Wonderdog. While he’d be relentless on our enemies, he’s about as pro-pork as you can get.