The only good reason to vote for John McCain
September 23rd, 2008I’ve tried to be fair minded. I’ve tried to look at McCain’s strengths and his temperament and give him the benefit of the doubt wherever possible. But in the end, there’s just no legitimate reason to vote for the guy, except one.
SOCIAL REASONS
Nope. McCain has has a mixed record on this… vacillating between common sense and embracing the agents of intolerance he once so courageously called on the carpet. Any hope you have for McCain as a live-free-or-die or at least a live-and-let-live conservative went out the window when he selected Sarah Palin as his running mate. Palin is so far gone that she opposes abortion in cases of rape and incest. In a McCain-Palin world, if a young woman is the victim of rape or incest, it would be a crime for her or her doctor to terminate the pregnancy. That is not only NOT conservative, it’s not human.
WAR
“Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.” John McCain literally sang those words. His defenders explain that he was joking. No rational person vying for the highest office in the land should joke about a war that would cost even more American lives. Ever.
ECONOMIC FUNDAMENTALS
Oy. Seriously. If your primary concern is the economy, McCain is not your guy. As recently as last year, McCain was openly admitting that the economy is not his strong suit. His chief economic adviser called this a “mental recession” and labeled America a “nation of whiners” for getting a wiff of the the shitstorm on the horizon. The day of the biggest financial upheaval since the Stock Market crash of the 1920s, McCain said the the “fundamentals of the economy are strong.” We could’ve solved America’s energy crisis if we hooked a generator to the backpedaling and spinning the McCain campaign had to do after that.
His campaign’s chief strategist earned $2 million lobbying for deregulation at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as recently as last month! And McCain’s response? Fire his corrupt strategist? Nope. Fire the head of the SEC! A decision so boneheaded that the Wall Street Journal and George Will labeled McCain as “unpresidential.”
THE WAR ON TERROR
What happens if Joe Lieberman – McCain’s first choice for Veep – isn’t there to tell him the difference between Sunni and Shia? Well, at least Sarah Palin can explain the difference between Sunny Delight and Shia Lebeouf, I guess.
OIL INDUSTRY AND PEOPLE MAKING MORE THAN $250,000 A YEAR
Okay. Let’s say you work for the oil industry and/or earn more than a quarter-million dollars a year, you think McCain will be better for you taxes than Obama. That’s true. Obama wants to raise your taxes. But, if you earn that much, you actually read the Wall Street Journal and can see the chaos around the corner. Nothing you do, no product you make and no service you provide will matter if the economy tanks in the way that it’s anticipated. Obama’s plan to cut taxes for EVERYONE making less than $250,000 a year means that the people who are truly at risk over the next few years will be able to weather the storm AND buy what you’re selling. And the more Americans who weather the storm, the sooner we get the country back on track and the sooner you’re making more money.
REPUBLICAN LOYALTY
This is not your father’s GOP. And that’s a very, very bad thing. Republicans used to represent a philosophy of limited government and deregulation and that philosophy worked best in opposition to the Democrats and their ethic of being their brother’s keeper. Unchecked, the limited government/deregulation approach coupled with unrestrained executive power gets us where we are today. With the Republican party of today, deregulation has meant an elimination of accountability: Deregulate something until it completely fails (whether it’s Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or the airline industry and their airport security) and then ask the country to chip in to fix the problem and insulate the irresponsible from accountability. It’s everyone man for himself until they completely fuck up, and then suddenly, we’re all in this together.
And just like a September seven years ago, the modern Republicans have again ignored warning signs and sat on their hands while a disaster rocked our country. And just like the patriot act of seven years ago, they’re rushing through a “solution” which nobody has time to examine but which looks to blatantly disregard and further endanger the respect for individual liberties, accountability and the positive conservative principles just when we need them most and when our way of life is most threatened.
MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
If you work for Halibuton or Blackwater or any of the other corrupt government black ops, John McCain is still your guy. He’ll continue to overpay you for your international immoral activities. You can continue waterboarding and rendition while keeping Uncle Sam’s pointing finger clean. But it’s not a good reason to vote for McCain. It’s an evil, morally bankrupt reason, so it doesn’t count.
THE ONLY GOOD REASON TO VOTE FOR MCCAIN.
There is only one. If it gets you laid.
If voting for John McCain gets you some action, go ahead. Just do it quickly since nobody will be in the mood if he wins.
– Steve
Stumble it!
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:03 pm
How about McCain’s sensible support for cap-and-trade to fight climate change, relatively free from the corporate welfare and ethanol subsidies Obama endorses? Or his health care reforms, which are arguably a step in the right direction? Or his long record of support for free trade, which is far superior to Obama’s? Or the fact that Congress will almost certainly go Democratic, and with two bad candidates on the ballot a divided government may not be a bad thing?
I’m by no means eager to see McCain in office, but there are more points in his favor than people realize. And if you know someone who will sleep with me for voting with him, well then I’m sold.
September 24th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Jacob makes some good points. More specifically – can we please start talking to each other like adults over the abortion issue?
People who oppose abortion literally see it as killing babies. If you’re killing a grown, live baby, it doesn’t matter how he got there, does it? It’s still immoral and wrong. We should be trying to come to some livable consensus about when life actually begins instead of saying that until it’s out, it’s arbitrarily allowed to be killed, at least in circumstances where the woman doesn’t want it, and afterwords it’s murder, instead of shouting at each other. I’m pro-choice, but the “even in rape and incest” charge doesn’t make logical sense… either it’s a baby, in which case it should have moral and legal rights in all situations – or it’s a cell growth in a woman’s body and therefore “I just felt like it” should be perfectly excusable. The rape and incest argument, as well as the late-term abortion argument, are emotional junk appeals rather than any sort of real logical morality.
And leave off the bomb Iran thing… no one is allowed to joke now? Really? From the liberal far left who idolizes Jon Stewart? From the author of a comic strip about politics? I’m much more concerned about his real policy stance than him trying to make a bad joke. The worst you can say is that he isn’t as careful with his jokes as he should be as president
Just for the record, I don’t want to vote for him. But Obama stands for nothing I want either. He wants more government spending on social programs, more gun control, and change apparently for change’s sake. He shows me nothing to make me think he is going to reduce the power of the executive (not that McCain does, either).
But most importantly, there is an extremely high chance (ignoring whatever we think about national zeitgeists, they have a pure strategic advantage in terms of incumbent seats) that we will have a fully democrat congress this fall. And an unopposed executive has been, in my opinion, as much the cause of our current governmental woes as who is leading that executive.
Replacing complete deregulation, poorly thought out tax cuts and deficit defense spending with over-regulation (the last attempt at corporate regulation causes $3million per year per business in accounting fee), tax hikes on industry based only on emotional hatred of ‘big oil’, and deficit healthcare spending… might be an improvement, but IMO it’s not much of one. We will at least eventually have to leave Iraq – domestic social programs just tend to grow and grow. I might have to hold my breathe and vote McCain just to balance out the democrats in congress.
September 24th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Great posts fellas.
Some thoughts…
My post was not saying vote for Obama. It was explaining that I see no good reason to vote for McCain and throwing in some jokes.
As I’ve mentioned before, I come from a libertarian-leaning perspective and also disagree with quite a few of Obama’s positions.
re: the abortion question and the in-cases-of-rape-and-incest issue: the only resolution is in your answer – if nobody knows when life begins then it’s only reasonable to err on the side of the certain life of the mother. That’s why even the rational religious find themselves unable to reconcile their opposition to abortion and belief that a rape victim shouldn’t be similarly forced by the government against her will to finish what the rapist started. You’re right it’s emotional but it’s also the wedge with which the spark of reason breaks through the theological fog. If not even that gets through, then the fog – and the person IMO – is just dangerously dense.
I responded to Jacob in an e-mail but it makes sense to post some of it here..
If you take McCain on balance, he’s far more detrimental to the United States and with Palin waiting in the wings, I’d think you’d have your passport up to date and handy.
I’m still for Obama – there is no better option and he might just be the smartest president we’ve had in, ummm, our lifetimes.
Here’s another way I look at it. McCain and Obama may have had just as many policy shifts or flip flops BUT in every case, Obama’s flopped in the right direction toward something reasonable. McCain’s flops have generally been toward neocon/theocon/socialist madness.
From the libertarian standpoint…
As long as the Republicans are the party of warrantless wiretaps, executive overpower, torture, pre-emption, unilateralism, faith-based initiatives, socializing wall street, fannie mae, freddie mac and federally securing money market accounts AND we let them get away with it, how will the system ever get reset? The beauty of the McCain-Palin ticket is that we can send a message to both the Neocons and Theocons in one shot: their day is over. And then run a a real conservative against Obama in 2012. Assuming one still exists.
I think it’s a far more realistic vision than a 3rd party coming out of nowhere.
The argument against the gridlock you describe is the past 18 months. They haven’t been so good. In fact, I’m a little queasy.
By saying that they’re both “bad” creates a false equivalency. You’ve got an honest, inexperienced, smart liberal running against a weak, volatile dishonest neocon in maverick’s clothing.
God (who doesn’t exist) forgive me, I’m quoting George Will..
It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?
Thanks again for the posts and the e-mails. Every smart e-mail and post just reinforces my reason-based faith in our chances of not ruining this world.
Back to the drawing board…
– Steve
September 24th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I definitely agree about sending a message. Which is why I really, really don’t want to vote for McCain.
Part of me keeps hoping that it’s just strange facade he’s thrown up to convince his own party to put him in power so he can do what he actually wants. That’s the crazy part of me. But McCain has done an amazing job of turning himself away from the candidate I respected and would have voted for in 2000 if I had been the right age yet.
It just scares me what’s going to happen in the next four years since, while I can at least respect Obama’s intelligence, I disagree with almost every policy he has, and I think he’s going to have free reign to implement those policies.
I’m far too often reminded of how many people I knew in 2000 who voted for Bush just because he was a vote against Clinton, whom they really did not like. I still think Clinton was a power-hungry, sleazy, and unprincipled person who was an excellent politician who gets a lot of credit for stuff he really didn’t cause… but I’ll agree he was much better than Bush any day. I think that whether McCain will be better than Bush will depend on how much of his soul he had to sell to win the Republican nomination.
Sorry to bark a little harshly on your post – I’m using to arguing against conservatives, but the recent liberal momentum for Obama is poking me the wrong way recently. Read the strip every day, by the way
September 24th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
So long as there’s a secret ballot you don’t need to actually vote for McCain if that’s the condition for sex. Make like a politician and lie.