It’s amazing that in these tough times John McCain is unable to engage in a principled debate on the economy. Commentators on this blog have put up conservative arguments, yet McCain seems to be completely unable to offer a coherent argument as to why he is the better choice when it comes to the economy. Sarah Palin can barely utter a coherent sentence at all. Instead, McCain sends out Palin to make personal attacks on Barack Obama. The strategy is clear – change the subject and hope that the fickle electorate will turn on Obama.

It doesn’t help, of course, that Obama has been calm and steady thoughout this crisis while McCain has acted like a desperate fool. It also doesn’t help that these disgraceful attacks will now give the press an excuse to look at John McCain’s past and Sarah Palin’s past. They each have their own questionable associations, and we will be hearing more about them.

We’re also seeing the fruits of McCain’s ugly campaign, as taunts like “kill him” and “sit down boy” come from their frenzied audiences. I guess this is what happens when you whip up fear and hatred.

Further, these allegations are not brought up in news conferences or in interviews, where McCain or Palin would be forced to answer tough questions about their allegations or about their own records. Palin has yet to conduct a single news conference. Yesterday, the press was also prevented from speaking with Palin supporters at a campaign event. Unbelievable.

Conservatives need to look in the mirror. Is this what you want from your candidates? Is winning at all costs worth it? Can you defend candidates who can’t even enunciate or defend conservative principles?

If this doesn’t work, this will be a fitting end to the Reagan conservative movement. By embracing a mediocre intellect like Sarah Palin, following the disaster of the George W. Bush presidency, conservatives will have proven that identity politics, cronyism and the politics of personal destruction have replaced conservative principles as the driving force of the movement. In many ways, today’s conservatives are the mirror opposite of Ronald Reagan, who relied on ideas and a sunny optimism to lead our country.