Whither to Hold One's Nose

Dear friends, if you don't want to talk politics, this isn't the post for you. Sorry.

I came across this voter's analysis of the situation faced by conservatives as we look toward November:

I’m torn. As a Christian and a staunch conservative, I’ve had to hold my nose every presidential election from 1988 to the present. As someone pointed out, at some point we have to quit doing that and work for good candidates. Is this finally the time to stop voting for the lesser of two evils?

Conservative arguments for McCain over Hillary or Obama: McCain will probably:
a) be better on the war in Iraq;
b) fight terrorism better;
c) nominate (more)conservative justices to the Supreme Court;
d) defend innocent human life (i.e. appoint strict constructionist judges to SCOTUS and elsewhere and curtail embryonic stem cell funding, etc.)

Refutations to those arguments:

a) No Democrat wants a loss in Iraq hanging around his or his party’s neck, so the Democrats will fight to win (though less competently one strongly suspects).

b) No Democrat wants to be on watch for another 9-11 attack so they will fight to win (though again, probably less competently) and McCain’s opposition to Gitmo and tough interrogation and his commitment to other Democrat-style approaches would make him basically indistinguishable from a Democrat President.

c) As someone pointed out elsewhere on this site, while a strict constructionist would be more likely to strike down Roe v Wade, et al, he would also be likely to strike down McCain-Feingold, something McCain won’t want to see happen. Hence, McCain will appoint more Souters and Breyers than Roberts and Alitos.

Finally, given McCain’s willingness to “reach across the aisle,” we are unlikely to see any significantly conservative governance from his administration. At least with Hillary or Obama in office, Senate and House Republicans will have some tendency to impede liberal policy initiatives whereas the very same policy initiatives from McCain will be propelled by Republican party unity.

With all that in mind, perhaps we should hope for a disastrous first two years from a Democrat administration paving the way for a conservative, Republican resurgence a la the 1994 elections. Given how many conservatives are probably going to sit this one out or protest vote for a third party (and I’m seriously considering those), I suspect that that is exactly what is going to happen. McCain needs ABSOLUTELY EVERY SINGLE CONSERVATIVE’S VOTE to even stand a chance against Hillary or Obama and even then may lose big time. The alternative, should McCain win, is to see him govern like a Democrat, recast the Republican Party as Democrat-lite, and have all the disasters the Democrats would bring us hung around the GOP’s neck.

No matter which way this goes, I think conservatives will need to work like mad from now until 2008 or 2016 to build a viable third party. This will either lead to a viable party (probably not) or siphon off enough votes from the Republicans to draw the GOP rightward again. [see KAS's comment 22 in the linked thread]

I think this analysis has merit, and have little to add. What say you?