Right now, there is much buzz about the candidacy of John McCain emerging as the Republican front-runner for the 2008 presidential election.

Many see McCain as the best hope for the Republicans to retain control of the White House, besting challengers like Hillary Clinton or Barrack Obama from the Democrats in the general election. But to what extent are Republicans willing to go to keep possession?

Within the mainstream media, McCain is often described as a “maverick” among the Republicans, choosing to vote against his party’s platform on many issues. This label has been used by many to describe McCain as a free thinker, governing by principal, not by politics as usual.

However, his record in the Senate points to an agenda that is nothing more than political — a record that demonstrates his straddling the fence between the two parties in hopes of appealing to moderates and independents, dismissing the conservative will that has defined his party for more than a half-century.

McCain hopes to pass his record as a maverick off as being a form of conservatism in the image of Ronald Reagan. But the truth be told, Reagan would have called McCain what he is, a moderate liberal, who sides, more often than not, with the company of Ted Kennedy and the liberal Democrats in Washington.

Ultimately, Republican voters will have to decide if winning is worth the selling of the party’s soul.

Here is but a sampling of issues that many conservatives may have forgotten, or never knew, about John McCain’s far from conservative record:

* He tried to pass McCain-Feingold, campaign finance reform that would violate Americans’ First Amendment rights regarding free speech.

* He tried to pass McCain-Kennedy, which is an amnesty bill allowing illegal aliens guest-worker provisions.

* He has established a record of not simply opposing tax cuts, including the Bush cuts of 2001 and 2003 and the attempt to eliminate the death tax in 2002, but of opposing them using class-warfare rhetoric, saying the cuts would only benefit the wealthy.

* He tells voters that he opposes all tax increases, but he won’t sign the Americans for Tax Reform pledge to “oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses.”

* As chairman of the Commerce Committee in 1998, he sponsored and voted for an enormous 282 percent tax increase on cigarettes. Sen. McCain defended the proposal as a “fee” rather than a tax increase.

* McCain has said he would not appoint judges like Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court because “he wore his conservatism on his sleeve.”

* He sabotaged a returning of the Senate to the majoritarian rule on judicial nominations that had stood for more than 214 years.

* McCain opposed the marriage protection amendment in 2004 and 2006 that recognizes marriage as existing between a man and a woman.

* He voted for the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007. The bill allowed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, regardless of the date when the cells were taken from the destroyed embryo. (President Bush limited federal funding to only stem cells that were derived by Aug. 9, 2001.)

* McCain has called for the closing of the terrorist detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay. Information obtained at this facility has crippled terrorist cells throughout the world.

* McCain has repeatedly said that America must reduce its dependence on foreign oil, but he has frequently cast votes against measures to increase our domestic oil supply, specifically in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). McCain has cast several votes against drilling in ANWR.

* He was the lead sponsor of an anti-gun show bill that gun-rights groups adamantly opposed that would have severely regulated gun shows and would have had all gun buyers register into a federal database.

* In 2001, McCain co-sponsored, with ultra-liberal Democratic senators Ted Kennedy and John Edwards, a “Patients Bill of Rights.” It would have created enormous health insurance mandates, much like Bill Clinton’s modern proposal and would have created an appeals processes that would have applied to the 194.6 million people covered by private health insurance. The bill also would have created expansive new rights to sue insurers, and employers who provide insurance, in federal and state courts.

Larry Brooks is a staff writer for the Walker County Messenger. He can be reached by email at lbrooks@walkermessenger.com.