"Ron Paul, are you kidding? You are dead wrong on that one."

Well, I'm getting used to being dead wrong. On this though, I don't think I am but I will admit to being fairly confused by what you feel a "conservative" is. See to me, and I'm sort of old fashioned I'll admit, Ron Paul seems to be saying the things that conservatives hold as core beliefs. Small government, less taxes, a nonintervention foreign policy, fiscal responsibility, keeping the government out of the lives of private citizens, and respecting the Constitution. Now granted the Republicans seem to have abandoned all of these things but does that mean all conservative tenets have been chucked out the window as well? I think not and I think what you are doing is just misusing the word...at least in terms of what it means from a political standpoint. I think you are talking about some sort of "lifestyle" preferences when you discuss being "conservative" and I don't blame you for that because talk radio and tv and wingnut authors have tried with all their might to distort its meaning and equate it to something like making a choice to join a certain church. Really, that ain't it and as an example you can be a conservative and not be a Christian because one has nothing to do with the other. I mean you can be a flamboyant raging homosexual and be a conservative when it comes to your political beliefs...odd I know...but true and this is where we seem to be having an issue here.

So I need your help, meet me halfway, please give me your definition of being conservative.
Okay not Ron Paul. The guy comes off as a nut job. Not George Bush but Ronald Reagan.
Not George Michael, Boy George or Phillis George(the babe).

"One is a proven businessman and one is not."

This has nothing to do with being "more conservative" unless you are trying to say that one of the qualifications of being conservative is being filthy rich.

"McCain went to Zero when he teamed up with Kennedy for the immigration bill."
So, does being conservative mean never working with a Democrat and doing all you can to demonize them? Granted, McCain is not like this and he works to try to create policy he thinks makes sense and if that means teaming up with Democrats to create some unity and get something done he'll do that. This is a bad quality to you?
It is when he is getting bombarded right in his own state.  Now I hear he has finally "seen the light". I don't believe it for a second"

"Then water-boarding became torture."
Pat, if there is one person we know can speak with authority on torture that would be John McCain...I mean what the hell? He's been there done that. If water-boarding is not torture can me and some of our DBIS pals here come over to your house and water-board you, your wife and kids this weekend? We'll postpone our orgy just to come see you!
Well I don't think he learned much from the torture. Maybe needs a refresh course by U.S. intelligence, might wake him up a bit.

"The Republicans would stand a better chance with McCain but that would set a bad tone for future Republican candidates in my eyes."

Pat, the guy that set the really bad tone for future Republicans is our current president. Even the current crop of Republican candidates avoid Bush as much as possible because they don't want to be tainted.

"If McCain or Hillary wins the Democrats have won."

I was looking at it as if Romney or Hillary wins we all lose...big!
Why would Hillary be bad for the Dems and Romney bad for the Repubs?

"Actually there is not really a conservative Republican in the field."

Again what is a conservative to you?
Lower Taxes, Cut back on spending on worthless Entitlement Programs. Tough on Defense and Protect the Border.

"Reg do you live in an area where this is an issue? I'll bet not but we live down here in North Juarez in Austin. Hell the little town I grew up in Ennis has been invaded by wetbacks. So no it is not I'm following the party line here I'm living in the middle of it."

There are illegal immigrants everywhere. Even here working in Mitt's yard! They are working construction, roofing, electrical, plumbing, doing our laundry, serving and preparing our food, bussing our tables, working in the food industry, picking our fruit, doing daycare for our kids, pumping our gas, pouring our coffee...and in general getting paid a lot less than us for doing it...and that has become part of our economy. It's why you pay what you do for the goods and services you buy every day. If they could suddenly round them up into camps, process them and ship them back...I don't know, with a huge military operation, it would cost a fortune and destroy our economy because it is now partly based on them being here. That's the funny part of it, you are complaining about it now but it was not part of the last 10 presidential elections was it? No, and that was when something could have been done about it but we were all too busy profiting from illegal immigrants and we still are. That's why I call it a crank issue, they use it to wind you up but their plan is to do very little about it because it's far more useful to them as a political volleyball. There is no simple or cheap way to fix that, Pat, we missed the boat on it as a country a good 35 years ago. In the end it's costing us a lot less having them here than it would to try to get them all out of here...it's a fucking dumb issue. They will round them up in border states once and a while to make it look like they have done something but they won't fix the problem. They don't want to fix it...well maybe Tancredo wanted to fix it but he's a fucking nut. If there were say 10,000 illegal immigrants here...ok, then we could try to do something but there are millions...we don't have the capacity to fix it. We can only try to adjust it to work in our favor somehow...that is the reality. We would have had to try to fix it decades ago!
We can start..................