Also disagree with the usual Democratic stances on anything vaguely related to economics (healthcare, social security, taxation and spending, energy, etc) due to how untenable those stances are, but that's nothing new.
I can see that on most of it, but healthcare? Am I missing something that makes it completely impossible for the US to socialize medicine when a place as poor as Cuba can?
(Just objective, basic morality says that the bla bla about how it'll bog down the system is made up for by the fact that people who currently fail to get care now, will. You can argue on...some.... level that the potential drop in care quality will make this undesirable, but completely untenable? Can't see it.
I suppose you can also argue that bla bla charity bla but actually lower-middle class people have to make their choice between not paying some bills or going to the hospital, since they tend to fall between the cracks for such things, etc.)
Annnyways.
Obama clearly is soft-peddling his own views; He's charismatic, he says what people want to hear, and underneath that it's hard to figure out what he actually
believes. His own past history doesn't show a whole lot in that direction either. He seems generic liberal; Is that what he is? I dunno. One interesting thing is that, when they focus on his family, though, he has had a very open-minded(and vaguely weird, really, in what I'd biasedly call a good way...) upbringing, from what I've seen. And that's basically the only clue I've seen either way, though I don't study politicians in depth as much as I should, sadly.
On the other hand McCain is clearly soft-peddling his own views and his real own views, which he's been loud enough about in the past, are positively awful at this point in time; Attempting to close off the US, or even leaning in that direction? In this day and age? This economy? You want to see a depression approaching 1920s? Because that's what could potentially occur. I'm not kidding, the idea of the US even trying to roll back to the way things were would, in short term, completely ruin us; It's something you do in a completely different economic situation. Even trying to stymie growth in that direction could cause horrible damage, short term.
Baaaasically, no matter what you think about how they are on smaller points, thinking about the larger ones seems like a much better thing; McCain has multiple ways he could completely screw over our country due to his own extremist views, or due to holding on to Bush's(Which he seems to have a tendancy to do; I'm never quite sure if he's trying to hold on to that vote base and doesn't care, or if he believes the same way.) too long.
Even if you think Bush was right on his stance about Iraq, it's better to have someone that thinks he was outright wrong and who makes plans to carefully withdraw than it is to have someone who mindlessly follows his same plans too long; The reprecussions of the former mostly just screw Iraq. The latter could screw us, Iraq and possibly some other allied countries. We obviously have to pull out of Iraq eventually, simply for financial reasons; A major portion of why our economy sucks right now is this war. If we get down the line in an unpopular war that is wrecking our economy until we pull a retarded Vietnam-like pull-out, the end results for Iraq are going to be so much worse than pulling out ASAP with a good plan, and far worse for ourselves and all allies.
(Oh. And am I the only one that put 2 and 2 together and remembered things like gas rationing in WW2? Sure, it's not as big of a war, buuuuut...yeah, there's a lot of reasons this is hurting our economy.)
Just from a realistic perspective on what's actually good for the country, Obama's better on balance, unless I'm missing some huge liberal perspective that could wreck the country as much as McCain's more extreme views. So eh.
It doesn't hurt that I lean liberal dem on stuff in general, I'll admit, but I hate both sides of politics. I just happen to have, for once, liked both of the democratic candidates. And I want to hit McCain with a brick and knock some of his silly dangerous idealism when it comes to policies out.
So yeah, going with Obama, myself.