My apologies in advance for the blatantly racist headline. Personally, I think it’s rather clever. Alas, it’s true – yet another so-called conservative has joined the ranks of the Obamaniacs.

Hold on to your tin foil hat!

The latest victim of Obama’s incredible mind meld is Philadelphia talk radio host Michael Smerconish, as ABC’s Jake Tapper eagerly reports on his “Political Punch” blog.

Now, I don’t begrudge Smerconish – or anyone else, conservative or liberal – the right to vote for any candidate, for any reason. Wanna support Obama so you can say you voted for America’s first black president? Excellent! Wanna side with McCain because you’re gaga over Sarah Palin? Wonderful! Maybe your decision is actually based on the candidates’ positions on the issues. Fantastic!

But “Barack Obama” and “conservative” are mutually exclusive terms. Anyone voting for Obama cannot accurately be defined as conservative – even if they were heretofore, in fact, conservative. Sorry Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, and George Will. Last time I checked, spreading the wealth around, negotiating with leaders of rogue nations without preconditions, and socializing healthcare were not pillars of the right wing movement.

Furthermore, no true conservative can be at all comfortable with the specter of a government run by the Obama-Pelosi-Reid three-headed monster. Even moderates should be petrified by the thought of this ultra-liberal, potentially filibuster-proof supermajority running our country for at least the next two years.

To be sure, few conservatives – including myself – are truly enamored with John McCain, at least from a policy standpoint. But vis-à-vis Barack Obama, the former darling of the New Party, McCain is the obvious and only rational choice for conservatives in this election.

Reading Tapper’s report, Smerconish justifies his support of Obama by regurgitating garden-variety liberal gripes about WMD in Iraq, letting bin Laden escape at Tora Bora, and so on. That’s his perogative, I suppose.

Just don’t call Smerconish a conservative anymore.

As of this writing, John McCain’s hopes for capturing the White House appear dashed. They are nearly as dim as they were back in July 2007, when most political observers left his campaign for dead. McCain is currently trailing Barack Obama by over seven points in the nationwide popular vote (RealClearPolitics average). Even more troubling, he is lagging in the electoral map projections – oscillating between a narrow defeat and a landslide, depending on how you count “leaners” and toss-up states.

However, there are still 22 days to go before the election. In today’s era of multiple daily news cycles and an electorate that in many ways has the attention span of a gnat, 22 days is an eternity. Therefore, there is still plenty of time for McCain to climb back into the race between now and November 4.

McCain can greatly improve his chances by doing the following three things: Read the rest of this entry »