Thoughts for Election Eve

My passions during this election seasons have run high. I've had nights that I've been so riled that I've taken a tablet to fall asleep.

There are some positions taken by Barack Obama that I like, and there are positions taken by John McCain that I don't like. I know who McCain who is. I don't believe that Obama is who he says he is, when, in his commercials, he talks about faith, patriotism, and his mother's teaching him what it meant to be an American. Not many believing Christians would recognize the theology espoused by Rev. Wright, Obama's spiritual mentor for 20 years. Obama's mother didn't appear to have much attachment to the USA: instead, she married two non-citizens and gallivanted around the world, leaving him in the care of her mother. Also, I'm creeped out by the cult of personality surrounding Obama.

I'll be voting for McCain tomorrow. I do have misgivings, beyond his his stance on some issues. I'm worried that his health might not hold out over the next four years. He's run a lackluster campaign: I'm reminded of Bob Dole's 1996 Presidential campaign, when it appeared that he became the GOP's nominee solely for being a party elder. Neither has McCain represented himself well.

For example, McCain could have hit Obama harder concerning Obama's opting out of public campaign financing. The pernicious role of money in campaigning has long been a big issue of the Democratic Party. McCain partnered with Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to sponsor the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 to do something about campaign financing: in this way, he bucked his party and could solidly portray himself as a "maverick."

Here's what Victor Davis Hansen wrote in the conservative National Review about public campaign financing:

"For years an axiom of the liberal establishment was the need for public campaign financing — and the corrosive role of private money in poisoning the election process. The most prominent Republican who crossed party lines to ensure the passage of national public campaign financing was John McCain — a maverick stance that cost him dearly among conservatives who resented bitterly federal interference in political expression. ...

For all practical purposes, public financing of the presidential general election is now dead. No Republican will ever agree to it again. No Democrat can ever again dare to defend a system destroyed by Obama. All future worries about the dangers of big money and big politics will fall on deaf ears.

Surely, there will come a time when the Democratic Party, whether for ethical or practical reasons, will sorely regret dismantling the very safeguards that for over three decades it had insisted were critical for the survival of the republic."

NOTE I'm conflicted when I identify a source as "liberal" or "conservative." On one hand, I use these terms for truth-in-labeling; on the other hand, the "L" word or "C" word is an instant turnoff for people of the opposite persuasion, who won't bother to read a source and consider the points.