Senator McCain’s dismal performance last Tuesday has led many a Conservative to depression (see: myself), frustration (see: Hot Air) and even desertion (see: Christopher Buckley).

We all need to take a few long, deep breaths before going nuclear on each other. There are legitimate points raised by Abe Greenwald and Jennifer Rubin on Commentary Magazine’s blog about Buckley’s endorsement. But Buckley’s endorsement is his own. I have already written my requiem for the McCain campaign but I have no intention of going silently into this socialist night. What I don’t have time and energy for, however, is rhetorically lopping off Buckley’s head. I would rather just shut up for now about it, do the work of helping spread the word about BHO, and after McCain stumbles into the presidency, I can turn around, say “I forgive you,” and move on with our lives.

The other point that I want to make is that Gov. Sarah Palin is not the problem. Far too many Conservatives have started to demonize her and blame her for McCain’s taking numbers. They are buying into the MSM narrative. She is the last prominent firebrand available when the got-damn candidate himself refuses to “dishonor” himself with legitimate questions on their opponent’s integrity. Scolding David Brooks and Kathleen Parker for thinking that Gov. Palin is the problem can wait another day.

We should look at it this way: she is the only conservative running in the race. Primary voters chose McCain because they thought that a Centrist could win an election against a Radical Leftist. In a predictable flip, it is easier for a Radical Leftist to look Centrist than for a Centrist to look Conservative, and the Republicans are looking to get a Conservative in the White House! We are tired of Conservatism-lite, where you had Bush party around with Congress. All we asked McCain was to campaign from the Right and tack to the center only when necessary. Instead he is tacking to the Right only when he needs to. Like when he picked Gov. Palin.

McCain can still fight to win without dishonoring himself. Like I said before, he shouldn’t be afraid of accusations of racism. As long as he was running a truly non-racist campaign, the accusations will reach a point of absurdity and he be taken seriously. Right now McCain is goose-stepping around the issue instead of hitting it head-on, and it’s hurting him.

A few entries ago I wrote about being too publicly self-critical. The problem lies in that right about now, it isn’t that WE don’t have a unified voice. It’s that the voice we want to put in office doesn’t quite speak for us. I still think that most of this country is still Center-Right. The problem is that McCain as placed us through this intense rollercoaster of support to disappointment, to support, to apathy, and it’s just so hard to find a reason to vote FOR him as opposed to simply preemptively voting BHO out of office before he gets his grubby paws on the presidency.