The year 1962 was a lousy time to be born in America. My earliest memories are of my parents' reactions to the assassinations of the 1960's and Viet Nam. My earliest memory of a president on television is of Lyndon Johnson telling the country he would not run again, the equivalent of resigning in disgrace. The Cold War loomed. It was downright depressing. Then along came Nixon and we had a Congress controlled by the Democrats and a Republican President. I thought that was how it had always been and always would be.

I didn't fully understand it but I knew the Democrats had been the ones in charge since before I was born and I knew that they and the news reporters hated Nixon. The Republican Party was some kind of fringe minority. But they won the White House, which seemed strange.

I lived through the 1970's, which were almost as depressing as the 60's. Remember Disco? Worse than that, remember Jimmy Carter? Then, Ronald Reagan made me a Republican and a Conservative.

Now, after a quarter century of Republicans holding their own, we are about to end up right back where I started. John McCain shouldn't have a prayer in November. He wouldn't have a prayer were it not for the fact that the Democrats are their own worst enemies. It is looking more and more like John McCain will have the opportunity to be a Republican president working with a Congress with a large Democratic majority.

And that makes sense. I have previously compared McCain to Bob Dole and Gerald Ford but it would be more accurate to say that he resembles Nixon in temprament and ideology. This simply means we Conservatives have little to cheer about. If John McCain turns out to be Nixon without the paranoia, the best we will be able to do will be to try to break even for eight years.