The Democratic Party is making it easy on their base by winnowing its offering down to two very liberal candidates, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama. For liberal Democrats, it’s a great decision to have to make. They can choose the older liberal who allegedly has more experience, but has a history of scandal. Otherwise, they can choose the younger liberal who is more inspirational, but whose résumé is somewhat shallow.

I wish I had a choice like that to make.

As a conservative, I am looking at the Republican side of the ticket to find a nominee to select. Unfortunately, the pickings are pretty slim on that side of the ballot. Sen. John McCain has the nomination all but sewn up, and he’s a tough pill to swallow for conservatives.

The issues with John McCain are many. Here are just a few:

- McCain co-authored the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, which was a direct assault on the 1st Amendment.

- McCain voted against President Bush’s tax cuts - twice.

- He has been preaching the gospel of Global Warming and promising to act on the issue. This portends even more economic damage.

- McCain was a member of the "Gang of 14," a bipartisan group of senators who fought to preserve the minority’s power to filibuster judicial appointments.

- The McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill which would have granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in America was only thwarted after a national groundswell.

- McCain voted in favor of embryonic stem cell research.

But beyond the issues themselves, it is McCain’s apparent glee in poking conservatives in the eye at every turn that has alienated him from the conservative mainstream.

For these reasons and many others, I will not be voting for Sen. McCain for the primary. Primary elections are when we get to choose the candidate we really want to run. The general election, on the other hand, is a different story. Should McCain secure the Republican nomination for president, which he almost surely will, then conservatives will have a very tough decision to make.

Conservatives will be faced with the choice of a very liberal Democratic nominee in either Obama or Clinton, or a very flawed nominee in McCain. Elections are about making choices - even if the choice is between bad or worse. As with every presidential election, the choice should be made on the basis of what is best for our country.

I confess that I don’t know the answer to that question at the moment.

What I do know is that the best interests of our country are rooted in conservative principles. Simple principles like humble government, individual liberty, economic freedom, and capitalism were founding principles and they are the surest path to continued prosperity.

Would a President McCain champion those conservative principles? He would probably do so more than either Clinton or Obama, but that’s not saying much. His promise to fight global warming goes to the heart of our economic liberty. He has already authored legislation that guts one of our core individual liberties. He has a strong record fighting the expansion of federal spending for earmarks, but has been very easy going on massive new entitlements.

To make matters worse, McCain is now claiming the conservative label for himself. Should he win the presidency, he will redefine or muddy the conservative message for years to come - just as President Bush has done with his support of nonconservative actions like explosive federal spending, Medicare Part D, and No Child Left Behind. Some are arguing that it would be better for the conservative movement if McCain does not win the presidency because it would galvanize the conservative movement like President Carter and President Clinton did. A strong conservative movement with a clear message of principle would be in the best long term interests of this country.

But the price for such a regrouping of conservatism might be too high. Could the country weather a President Obama or President Clinton while the conservative movement regrouped? What would be the long term consequences of an immediate Iraq surrender, as both Clinton and Obama are advocating? Would we be able to stop or reverse nationalized health care should a President Obama or Clinton implement it?

I don’t know. I’m glad that the general election is still nine months away.

(Owen B. Robinson, a West Bend resident, is a blogger who publishes at www.bootsandsabers.com. His column usually runs Tuesdays in the Daily News.)