Election Day and the Conservative Quagmire

Just for fun last week, I decided to interview a conservative friend of mine to pick his brain and find out why he was voting for Republican nominee John McCain and his vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Mike Verno is a boisterous fellow, full of conviction and a penetrating intelligence that is apparent five minutes after meeting him. If anyone could make the case for the McCain/Palin ticket, it was this guy.

Or so I thought.

"I am planning to vote for Barack Obama," Verno said with deadpan delivery. "I will vote for Obama, actually. This country needs a radical shift. We need something more radical to bring the war effort to an end. I'd like to see our international prestige go up, and I don't think John McCain can do that."

The mood had changed considerably. Suddenly, neither of us was laughing.

Collecting my jaw from the floor, I asked him to repeat what he said, because I didn't quite catch the last part of his comments. My brain had temporarily seized up after the word "actually."

"I don't feel good about it," Verno said, "and I only want him in there for four years. I just hope he'll be in there long enough to bring a radical change to the country that will jump start the economy and improve our international standing."

Although he may not sound like it, Verno is a Republican, hands down, but he votes his conscience, not the party line. He grudgingly voted for George W. Bush in 2000 (it was more of a vote against Al Gore, he said), but favored McCain in the primary. Things have changed dramatically in eight years, though. McCain has changed, he said.

In 2004, fed up with Bush and the dramatic shift in his political ideology, Verno said he voted for Democrat John Kerry (it was more of a vote against Bush), even though he disliked both candidates.

"I'm a Ron Paul guy," Verno said. "But he's not an option." Verno said he doesn't believe the conservative movement has been totally destroyed, but he does believe it's on life support. And John McCain isn't the candidate to bring it back -- not after the campaign he has run. "I feel he has undermined its potential to succeed," Verno said. "He's run a terrible campaign and his selection of Sarah Palin was a shallow political move."

I can only hope that Verno is a blip on the radar, and that most conservatives will turn out the vote for McCain and Palin. But Verno's disillusionment with the Republican Party -- and McCain in particular -- makes me nervous, especially considering how much respect I have for him.

Verno is clearly a paleoconservative and believes that the conservative movement has been taken over by the neocons and social cons. Verno says he agrees with many of the fundamental beliefs of both those "brands" of conservatism, but thinks the movement should return to its small government, fiscal conservative roots -- the kind of conservatism introduced by Barry Goldwater.

My conversation with Mike was strangely reminiscent of my conversation with Dr. Paul Gottfried, the man widely credited with defining "paleoconservatism." As a paleocon, Gottfried told me he, too, was planning to vote for Obama. He said he believed that the Democrat would put the country into such a financial crisis that in four years, the nation would drift back to the right and elect a true conservative.

Again, Gottfried is a man I respect and admire, and again, his reasoning gives me pause. Verno insists that his reasons for voting Democratic in 2008 is in no way subversive. He genuinely believes Obama is the better candidate this year, and the only one who can return respectability to the Oval Office.

Of course, I disagree with both positions. I believe McCain the president would be the McCain of old. I will agree that he's a lousy campaigner. I think he won the debates, but not by much. Unfortunately, he needed a grand slam in each one, and he hit singles instead. I don't think, however, that the way a candidate campaigns reflects the way he'll govern as president.

If that were the case, we would be reflecting on President George W. Bush as a man who was a steadfast "compassionate conservative," a man who reached across the aisle to shore up a divided Congress, and a man who dramatically reduced the size and scope of government. These are three of the many famous campaign promises Bush has broken since taking up residency in the Oval Office.

Barack Obama is the unknown variable. An untested neophyte to US government. A man who has been in federal government just three years, two of which he has spent campaigning for president of the United States. While I respect my conservative friends' points of view, I cannot accept them.