Jeff Jacoby makes the conservative case for John McCain. He's correct that McCain is someone a true conservative can support, though you may not agree with all his positions. I would add to that that Mitt Romney is someone that a true conservative cannot. Not because he took socially liberal positions on things like abortion and gay rights when he ran in 1994 and 2002. It's because on health care, Mitt Romney is a socialist.

Conservatives may be backing Mitt Romney more so than McCain, but remember that while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama argue about who can do a better job socializing medicine, Mitt Romney has already done it. He supported and signed a law that would fine people who don't buy health insurance, which is something Hillary Clinton can for now only dream about.

"It's a conservative idea," says Romney, "insisting that individuals have responsibility for their own health care. I think it appeals to people on both sides of the aisle: insurance for everyone without a tax increase."

Conservative? Romney explains further in a 2006 piece in The Wall Street Journal:

Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate. But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided.

That's a canard liberals have used for years. Someone's got to pay for it! But the conservative message has always been that, well, you should pay for your own things. Romney implied that those without health insurance are "free riders."

''No more 'free riding,' if you will, where an individual says: 'I'm not going to pay, even though I can afford it. I'm not going to get insurance, even though I can afford it. I'm instead going to just show up and make the taxpayers pay for me,' " Romney told reporters after a healthcare speech at the John F. Kennedy Library.

In other words, if you can afford to buy something, you should be forced to buy it. And who are all these people who can afford health insurance but don't buy it, but then don't pay for the health care they do receive? I've chosen to be without health insurance in the past; it was simply more cost effective for me when I owned my own business to go to the doctor and pay out of pocket. It's insulting, and I believe factually incorrect, for Romney to blame the working uninsured-by-choice for the high cost of government-paid health care.

Jacoby mentions in his piece that he wishes McCain better understood that liberty is important. But Romney confuses responsibility with government mandates that don't work. Also, as one would expect, the mandate plan hurts small businesspeople the hardest. And it obviously takes away personal choice, that is, liberty.

Why it's not a deal-breaker for people who call themselves conservative is beyond me.