It's morning in America for John McCain

The senior senator - or is it El Senor Senator? - from Arizona on Wednesday alerted the Cuban-American community in Little Havana that the Socialists are Coming!

The Arizona senator said that "everyone should understand the connections" between [Hugo] Chavez, [Evo] Morales and communist Cuban President Fidel Castro.

"They inspire each other. They assist each other. They get ideas from each other," McCain said. "It's very disturbing."

With all due respect to McCain, who spent several years in a Hanoi hell-hole as a prisoner of war, his audience and a good portion of Americans in general, already understand that socialism is not only not dead but threatens once again in the Americas. This includes the United States, and Senator McCain's efforts at campaign finance reform limiting free speech and his support of national health care, plus his squishy record on immigration controls, hasn't helped curb the incursion.

Sometimes we wonder if certain members of Congress and the executive branch are executing strategy of "pre-emptive socialism," sort of a wrong-headed political and economic version of what the Russians did to Napoleon as he marched toward Moscow. The Russians torched their cities and thus removed anything of value that the French conqueror could use. Only in this strategy America would deprive itself of its economy, its standard of living, its way of life so that we would become less attractive to foreigners as a target of conquest?

This would explain the popular "blame America first" theme of everything from the antiwar sentimentalists to the Global Warming fear-mongers who insist that we systematically eliminate hydrocarbon-based fuels from our lives so that China and the rest of the world will be impressed with our sacrifice and follow suit.

There is little doubt that the Democrats will nominate a candidate for president next year who will embody much or even all of this type of thinking. It would be a terrible injustice to voters if the Republicans offer a candidate who is "Pre-emptive Socialism Lite."

There is a clear divide on the big issues in this country. War and peace. Tough border control versus amnesty-open borders. A reliance on freedom and opportunity to solve economic and social problems versus government-mandated interference. Defense of traditional values versus "everything goes."

The 2008 election should offer candidates who embody these polar opposites, not pretenders who blur the lines and hug the fence so much that it doesn't really matter who wins. Senator McCain's legislative track record does not recommend him.