My post the other day comparing the Obama-McCain race to the 1976 election got picked up and spun by a right-wing blogger a couple of days later. He got some of his facts wrong, such as the assertion that Jimmy Carter almost lost the 1976 election: the popular vote was fairly close, but Carter handily beat Ford in the electoral vote count. More importantly, though, in this link and a couple of other links I’ve noticed. some right-wingers have used my dislike of Obama to pump up McCain and I want to make it abundantly clear that I am even more opposed to the idea of John McCain becoming President than Barack Obama.
My main qualm about Obama boils down to this: he is not nearly liberal enough. His pretty rhetoric disguises an agenda that guarantees the continuation of many of Bush’s bad policies, and he seems willing to bend to Republican litmus tests at the drop of a hat. Witness this weekend’s kerfuffle about Obama’s sudden willingness to allow offshore oil drilling. I *do* actually agree with the criticism coming from the right that Obama’s ego is getting too big to share the room with the rest of him.
BUT… (and this is important)
John McCain is probably the worst choice the Republicans could have made out of a group of candidates who were collectively the most disappointing group of presidential wannabes I can ever recall. As a senator, his only significant legislative achievement was a campaign finance reform bill that was less than worthless in practice, and which he himself can’t even be bothered to comply with in this election. Otherwise, most of McCain’s Senate career has consisted of the usual insider deals, shady ethics, and fatuous public preening that Republicans have turned into an art form. His “war hero” credentials mean jack shit, and more than a few of his colleagues have had no trouble characterizing him publicly as a “loose cannon” and “erratic”.
This website offers a solid list of 100 reasons NOT to vote for John McCain helfully categorized by subject. Some of them are a little weak — Cindy McCain’s drug abuse problem is totally irrelevant, for example — but more than enough of them are serious enough to warrant not even giving him the nomination.
This post at Dangerous Intersection by Tim Hogan boils down a lot of this into 15 bullet points about McCain’s overall state of ignorance that should convince anyone that it would be irresponsible to elect him to the Presidency.
