Tuesday, October 21, 2008

For whom should I vote?

My initial predilection for McCain has been approximately offset by his terrible campaign and VP choice. Senate is an easy R, and house is an easy D this year (will post endorsements this week), but not sure on Pres.

Anyone willing to try to influence a moderate, fiscally conservative Republican voter is welcome to post in comments.

I should point out, however, that either candidate would probably be the best president of the last 20 years, to it's a good kind of confusion.

17 comments:

I Opine for Fun said...

I have been going back and forth between the candidates myself, even considering third party candidates. But I think Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama probably convinced me. I have great respect for Powell, and he confirmed all the things I've been thinking. Too bad he isn't running! Nice blog - good luck with it.

Silver Fox said...

If this post doesn't convince you that you are an idiot for being undecided at such a late date (a view to which I do not subscribe), I don't know what will!! I was initially pissed when I read it, then let it pass.

It's interesting to me that Colin Powell has endorsed Obama - does that mean he really doesn't like the war, or what?

I've never been a Republican, though have voted that way at least once (yikes!); all I can say is I don't want another Vietnam, I don't want to start selling abortifactant herbs just because everything else becomes illegal, and the R Veepette looks worse and worse all the time.

Maybe McCain will come back to some of his original stances that he had prior to this year and prior to the convention, but I think he's been hopelessly bought and is maybe no longer his own man.

I think you're right, though, either one will be a better Pres than anything we've seen recently. Hell, I might vote for Nixon if he was still around compared to our last 3!

C W Magee said...

Richard Nixon was the greatest president of the 20th century.

He found a way to extricate us from the various messes leftover by the previous democratic administrations, from Vietnam to desegregation to the Apollo 1 fire.

He signed all the laws that form the basis of modern federal environmental policy.

He opened up China.

He signed the first nuclear arms limitation treaty with the USSR.

Can you imagine how a world without any of these things would be a better place?

Ignoring the complaints of bitter old babyboomers, it is hard to find any historical President who has shaped the modern world in such a positive manner.

Unknown said...

Not sure what bugs me most about McCain (although the apparent lack of thought he put into his VP choice is way up the list) - but he's been rather anti-science for a long time. That's enough to keep me from voting for him.

(In particular, he got my goat when he referred to earmarks he considered wasteful as paying for "planetariums and other foolishness". He's been harping on a requested earmark to upgrade the planetarium projector in the Adler as wasted money on updating "outdated office equipment like overhead projectors. As if educating children could be considered waste... we could argue about whether the federal government should pay for these things, but calling it waste is a different story.)

The sad part is I really wanted McCain to get the nomination in 2000 so I could vote for him... but he doesn't seem like the same politician anymore.

C W Magee said...

Squawk,
I felt the same way after the last debate. But then I saw the Alfred E. Smith videos, which show that the intelligent, engaging Senator McCain does actually still exist. What happened to him during the debates is beyond me.

So now I'm wondering if he isn't just suffering from Gore/Kerryitis, and turning into a Robot (or Joebot) on the campaign trail.

Kim said...

My Other Half (who is socially liberal and fiscally conservative) decided to vote for Obama after McCain nominated Palin. He's horrified by the young-Earth creationism, and I think imagining Palin & co nominating Supreme Court justices scares him.

Me, I'm just horrified by the extreme anti-intellectualism of the Palin wing of the Republican party.

Chris said...

OK. I'm not an American. I dare not assume I can reason in the same way an American would. I'm just one of those crazy non-American citizens living in a "socialist" country.

But seriously, why any rational person would even consider McCain as a reasonable option is beyond me. The man is a 72 year old cancer survivor. If you vote for McCain, you may as well be voting for Palin as president. So let's take that perspective.

Chuck, as a geochemist, do you consider a person so clueless as to think the world is 6000 years old, appropriate to run the United States?

As a geologist, would you be OK writing a paper on the petrology and geochemistry of a rock having only seen it from 1000 km away? If Palin were a geologist, she'd be claiming intimate knowledge of the Siberian Traps because of her proximity to them.

Palin aside, as a scientist, are you comfortable with electing a person who describes state-of-the-art planetarium equipment, which will be used to inspire the next generation of American space scientists, as "an overhead projector"?

Do you consider a woman who's against abortion of any sort, even in the cases of rape or incest, appropriate in a moral sense to be your representative to the rest of the world?

Can you reasonably argue that someone who has be found guilty of abuse of power in her current job would not do the same in the position of vice president or president?

If you answered yes to all of those questions, go ahead and vote for McCain.

Anonymous said...

On behalf of the rest of the world can I ask you to vote for Obama (not that it is any of our business - much).

Silver Fox said...

Chuck, for all of LBJ's mistakes, I think he was also a great pres in many ways. (Nixon sure was a paranoid guy.)

Chris Phoenix said...

Recently a chatbot, Elbot, fooled three out of twelve judges into thinking it was human than a human that the judges were chatting with simultaneously.

Elbot's strategy is simple:

1) If the human types a word or sentence structure you understand, give a pre-canned response that's vaguely related.

2) If you don't understand at all, say something challenging and personal (either personal to you, or to the human).

3) Don't hide what you are - play it up. (Elbot kept making jokes about its robot nature.)

Think about it: these are exactly the strategies Palin used in the debates!

McCain plans to put a chatbot a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Please, please, don't vote for that ticket.

The scary thing is that Elbot worked...

Chris

Chris Phoenix said...

Oh yes, and...

"Why did Congress reject the bailout bill the first time around?"
"They needed the time to add more pork."

Chris

Anonymous said...

I don't understand why anyone with a science background would vote for McCain. Are you thinking the science environment would benefit from a republican administration?

Silver Fox said...

I don't understand why anyone with a science background would honestly think that scientists vote as a block! They never have, never will.

Yoo said...

Please consider voting for McCain.

Dr Mike at Otago said...

As a distant relative-in-law of the GOP VP candidate, I can say she scares the crap out of me. In reading some of the debate transcripts, I think McCain doesn't want to be president. That's the only rational explanation of his choice.

Dick Nixon was a second-rate crook who tried to overthrow the constitution. He was the worst president of all time. If he hadn't been such a coward, he would have been impeached, convicted, removed from office, and sentenced to time in jail. Unfortunately, he did shape much of the modern world - the way shit is shaped out of a horse's ass.

C W Magee said...

It's funny, but when I brought this issue up last month nobody had anything to say.

Silver Fox said...

You should have run and campainged on all your great carbon sequestration ideas. You're much smarter than any current (and past for the most part) politician. But then you'd have to come out of your ex-pat status.