Bert makes an appropriate and persuasive article about why one should pull the lever for McCain, despite his faults. I am sympathetic to this point of view. Here's the beef, though.
McCain is a charlatan. He is a complete boob. He made his career sucking up to the media while bashing conservatives and snuggling with Democrats with some can't-we-be-nice bi-partisanship crapola. He was the absolute worst nominee our party could have put forward. I can't imagine a worse (viable) candidate. (Ron Paul does not count as viable.) He thinks he knows something about American foreign policy-he doesn't. He thinks he knows something about the intricacies of military policy-very little-in my estimation. This "politics of personal honor" is REALLY off-putting. Everything is an affront to him. Should I vote for him and he win, he is guaranteed to be the nominee in 2012, so I can get a total of 8 years of this stooge. Why do I have to do that? Not to mention, given the fact that Dems won't be shutout of the White House forever, leaves me with the prospect of no real quality Republican candidate until at least 2016, and maybe longer. Republicans became drunk with power and they spent money like it was going out of style. Having Democrats in control of Congress won't be that much different. I doubt the percentage of the growth of spending will be any higher than the Bush years. There are consequences to the bad leadership of Republicans, and the loss of my vote is one of them. If we need another Clinton to spark another '94, lets do it, because the current version of Congressional Republicans is laugh-out-loud bad. I don't care what they say, I look at what they do and I find it ridiculous.
Now-to the Chief Executive. It is true that it is extremely unlikely that I will ever vote for a Dem to be President. I have too many sharp policy disagreements. Obama will be the worst president since Buchanan. But I am not voting for him. But why does that mean that I have to vote for a nearly as bad alternative? McCain lost my vote 6 years ago-why should I take him seriously now? He has proven nothing to me except that his instincts are terrible, his grasp of policy is thin, and his temeperant is anything but reasoned. When he put Palin on the ticket, I thought about it. I do like her, and I laugh at her critics who criticize her experience while promoting Obama. But she won't be president-he will. And he will be the worst president since Chester Arthur. Time for Republicans to pay the price for their sins. I can't support a massively bad choice because the alternative is hugely massively bad.
