In his speech to CPAC moments ago, Republican nominee John McCain called himself a life-long conservative. But that’s not what life-long conservatives call him. His speech writers included all the right conservative buzz words. But most of them are at odds with his past performance. So, what now?

As the last remaining conservative in the GOP race, Mitt Romney suspends his bid for the White House today, leaving the White House in the hands of quasi-liberals, John McCain, Hillary Clinton or Barrack Hussein Obama for the coming four years, what’s our next move to protect and defend our nation from the enemy within and the enemies abroad?

No matter who wins in November, the nation is poised to leap left over the next four years. The two overriding concerns for conservatives MUST be the ongoing war against international jihadists and the next Supreme Court appointments.

Attempts are already underway, to use these two very real issues as justification for why conservatives must unite behind John McCain this fall. Yet McCain’s past track record lends no clear indication that McCain can be trusted with these two issues any more than he can be trusted to secure our borders, protect free political speech or aggressively interrogate the only people who can tell us when and where the next 9/11 will happen.

In the end, McCain’s history is one of being better aligned with Democrats than conservatives. Even now, McCain’s message to voters is this…

McCain will work across the aisle and conservatives will have to "calm down" and learn to live with that reality. Or, they will live with the reality of a Clinton-Obama era that will make Jimmy Carter look like a conservative genius.

With conservative voters completely divided between at least eight Republican candidates, all conservative candidates have now fallen. McCain, one of the most liberal Republicans in the U.S. Senate and an MSM golden boy as a result, is now for all practical purposes, the nominee of the Republican Party for 2008 and conservatives are left feeling politically homeless.

What can conservatives do - to protect and preserve conservative American principles over the next four years, whether McCain, Clinton or Obama win the White House?

As a life long conservative, I have no more faith in McCain than Clinton, that he will nominate staunch conservative judges to the Supreme Court. However, no matter which of the three becomes President, they will have to pass the Senate in order to advance judges or much of anything else over the next four years and that is where conservatives must now turn their attention.

As one of three liberals will be the next President, it becomes more important than ever for conservatives (or at least Republicans) to control at least one of the houses of congress. The Senate is the place to start, since we have real opportunities in the closely divided Senate, and since the Senate will have direct oversight over so many administration policies, not the least of which is war funding and Supreme Court nominations.

The U.S. Senate is currently made up of 49 Republicans and 49 Democrats, with 2 so-called Independents, socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, both of whom caucus with Democrats giving Democrats an effective 51-49 advantage over Republicans.

35 of the 100 Senate seats are in contest in 2008. Only 12 of the 35 are currently held by Democrats while 23 Republican seats are up for grabs, with 5 Republican Senators retiring and no Democrat Senators scheduled to retire.

For conservatives to gain control of the Senate, they will have to hold all 23 Republican seats and gain at least 2 seats currently held by Democrats. This means that conservatives must focus energy and resources in all 23 Republican districts and carefully choose a few Democrat districts where they have the best chances of picking up a few seats.

Wikipedia has a pretty good outline of 2008 Senate races here –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2008

If conservatives can focus all resources on these Senate races between now and November, they can regain control of the Senate and thereby, block a leap to the left, no matter who wins the White House. They can certainly position themselves to control Supreme Court confirmations and ongoing war on terror efforts.

As Mitt Romney leaves his bid for the White House, I would love to see him immediately turn his sites and resources on challenging John Kerry for his Senate seat, which is up for re-election in 2008. This is a place where Mitt could indeed make a HUGE contribution to the conservative agenda immediately and in a very real way. It would also position him better for another White House run in 2012.

This is the thinking conservatives must shift to now and all attention must go into regaining control of the Senate.

There isn’t time for hand-wringing or whining about what we should have done. We must now shift focus to what we can still do and get on with the business of doing it.