Vote 2008

Being a libertarian, I'm often very frustrated come Presidential elections. I generally don't completely agree with either the Democrat nor the Republican candidates and the Libertarian candidate is generally a nutter.
While Bob Barr isn't a nutter, this year I'm again on the presipice of voting against someone rather than voting for someone. Well, there is a small caveat there...(I'm looking at you Sarah)
I look at the positions and character of both the major candidates and I just can't see how I could possibly pull the lever for Obama.
Here's what I look at:

McCain Cons:
He leans WAY to far left for me: McCain-Fiengold Campaign Finance Reform and McCain-Kennedy Immigration Reform are just two examples where John McCain leans across the aisle to find common ground...but in both cases the resulting efforts were bad.
He's wrong on energy. Drill here, drill now.

McCain Pros:
His stance on the surge was spot on. If he's elected, we'll be out of Irag by the summer. And we'll have won.

He's promised to try and extend the Bush tax cuts
Say what you will about the man, but he's got great character...he's stayed away from the mudslinging the Carl Rove made millions with.

Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin.

Obama Pros:
He reads a mean speech.

Obama Cons:
His judgment: The people he has surrounded himself with his ENTIRE political career are either criminals or extreme leftists or both.

His stance on the surge. If he's elected we'll be out of Iraq by the summer. And we'll have lost.

He's dead wrong on energy, even to the point where he told the San Francisco Chronicle that he'd LIKE to destroy the entire coal industry. Fun.

We can argue about Abortion all day...fine. However in the Illinois legislature he supported denying care to babies that were to be aborted but something went wrong and they WERE BORN!!! Understand this: This man voted to make it law that if a baby was to be aborted, but was born alive anyway, all care was removed from this baby and it was put in a seperate room (closet) to die....alone. Dude.

His experience: He was on the national level for 177 days before he decided to run for President. That alone stuns me.

Finally, he said (I heard him) that the Constitution is a flawed document of negative rights. That the constitution does a fine job of saying what the government cannot do to it's citizens but doesn't say anything about what it should do to or for them. Um...actually, that's all the constitution does...it PROTECTS OUR RIGHTS. That's pretty positive to me. This shows a fundamental difference in understanding the constitution betweem myself and Mr. Obama.

I'd love to see someone run for president who:
Thinks that the country is WAY over taxed and over regulated
Trusts it's citizens enough to not treat them like infants (I'm looking at you Patriot Act)
Understands that Supply Side economics not only works, but works better than anything else ever tried.
Realizes that people have a Right to ACCESS health care, but not a right TO health care. (BIG DIFFERENCE)
By extension-realize what a right is, and not pander to the lowest common denominator.