With 2007 barely begun, the 2008 Presidential race is already heating up. Every time I turn on the news, awash in stories of Presidential candidates, I get the urge to check my calendar to make sure we didn't skip a year. Not all of those who will run have announced their candidacy, and not all of those who have announced will still be under consideration a year from now. Perhaps this is the time, before things really get going, to consider what we should look for in a Conservative candidate. Personalities aside, what's really important is a candidate's stance on the issues we will continue to face during his or her tenure.

It's difficult to decide, since some people consider some issues more important than others. If a candidate is for X but against Y, is he equally acceptable as one who is for X and Y, but against Z? What's needed is some way for us each to "rank" issues in order of importance, so we can attempt to divine the acceptability of each candidate. Of course, that assumes every candidate is being honest about his or her position on each issue... and trusting the honesty of a politician is like trusting the dog not to eat your steak dinner while you're out. (Then again, dogs can be trained. I'm not so sure about politicians.) Perhaps the "conventional wisdom" that Senators and Representatives don't get elected to the highest office is due to the fact that so many change their positions in order to run. A voting record, such as one can find at Project VoteSmart or OnTheIssues, would actually be an asset for a candidate who is not misrepresenting his or her positions.

Tier 1 Issues: National security, Iraq/the War on Terror, judges and the border

The most important issues with which we will continue to deal for the foreseeable future are the War on Terror, the battle in Iraq, and border control (an essential part of national security). Anyone who aspires to be President of the United States must be aggressive on offense and tough on defense. The candidate should be perfectly willing to listen to phone calls made by (or to) known terrorists without asking permission, as an essential part of intelligence gathering. He must be ready to interrogate captured enemies aggressively, even if the New York Times says bad things about him. He has to face the fact that we are a nation at war.

President Bush seems to have finally gotten the message that our military must be allowed to take the fight to the enemy in Iraq, instead of trying to win hearts and minds while terrorist bombs are exploding in marketplaces on a daily basis. His successor should be inclined to continue that policy. Running away -- abandoning our allies and our responsibilities -- is not an option. If we allow Iraq's fledgling democracy to fail by our own spinelessness, the entire Middle East and most of the world will convulse in a spasm of anti-Western violence, and we will be unable to do anything about it.

In the larger war, the conflict with Iran is heating up. If it does not erupt before Bush leaves office, it will surely do so over the next few years. Iran must not be allowed to dominate the Middle East with the threat of nuclear weapons -- which they are likely to use, or give to terror groups. Our next President should have the will to do whatever is necessary to prevent them from gaining that ability, while confronting growing threats from countries like North Korea and China.

Closer to home, we need to know who is entering our country and why. Not all those who cross our wide-open borders are well-meaning folk who just want to work hard and raise a family, whatever illegal alien apologists may say. Whoever follows President Bush must not continue his lax border policies, but should build a fence on our southern border, deploy UAVs to track illegals both north and south and crack down on companies that hire illegal immigrants.

The candidate must understand that the Supreme Court's main job is to ensure that the rulings of lower courts do not violate the Constitution. The judiciary was not created to write the laws, create rights or mandate policy, and certainly not to alter the meaning of the words in the Constitution to suit an agenda. Kelo v. New London, in which the very meaning of the phrase "for public use" was changed to allow local governments to transfer private property to new owners who might generate more tax revenue, was perhaps the worst moment in the last three decades of Supreme Court history. Ignoring the fact that the McCain-Feingold Act blatantly violated the First Amendment by placing strict limits on political speech was a close second. Federal judges should not misuse their power to tell state legislatures how to write laws, allocate money or impose cultural decisions. A President should only nominate judges to any bench who are either originalists or constructionists -- not activists of any kind.

If any Presidential candidates meet the criteria for first tier issues -- and no one should bother to run who cannot do so -- they can battle over issues of the second tier.

See also: A Conservative Candidate, part 2