Candidates: John McCain

I’ve always had a casual interest in John McCain. He’s a very frequent guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart which is a program I’ve come to watch religiously in the last few years. He is one of the rare dudes on the right who actually shows his ass up on that program. And that takes some guts. And not only does he not struggle with it like John Kerry when talking about Iraq, he seems to really be comfortable conversing with Stewart.

This seems to be one of the only things that separates him from the Republicans. He holds very standard conservative views about Iraq – our most important issue. He believes victory must be accomplished in Iraq and more troops will be necessary to accomplish this. He is very concerned about fair treatment of war prisoners (understandably) and the troops, but my biggest concern is with the people caught in between. The innocent victims of war - Iraqi citizens and the families and friends of the victims of this pointless war. Victory can’t be accomplished with innocent lives being harmed. Ever. We need a plan to get out. Yeah, soldiers die. Yeah, extremist morons die. But they have to be expecting it with their lifestyle choices. When a mother looses her only child to Dubya’s war we’ve already lost.

Iraq also takes away from our need to fix all of our domestic problems that are so numerous.

McCain wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade and give that power to the states. Ok. I’m not too concerned. Abortion is moral and this can be philosophically proven but we’ve got bigger fish to fry. Along with this he takes Bush’s view that we shouldn’t use embryos for stem cell research which doesn’t make any sense to me but is true with his morals on the creation of life. Both are fundamental arguments with a basis in religion. I am not religious but also not currently in need of an abortion or stem cells. Since it doesn’t concern me I’ll let those it affects decide.

Border security does affect me. Because Mexicans allow this country to run. They do the shitty jobs we don’t want to do because they are trying to put food in the mouths of their family. As far as the terrorism argument – last I checked we were dealing with fundamentalist Islam not Catholic Mexicans who not only pose no threat to this country but actually allow it to function.

I do like McCain’s stance on global climate change. At least he admits it exists unlike the President who seems to have his fingers in his ears as he sticks out his tongue to almost 100% of environmental scientists. Global climate change is an extremely real and important issue. It is safe to say that I will never give my support to a candidate without a serious plan to deal with this.

McCain also believes that the government spends too much money on frivolous projects. While this may be true to a certain extent, a lot of these projects may be necessary for our development and understanding of the world. While I am not at this time clear on the projects the government chooses to support I will not make further comment on this issue.

McCain certainly focuses on many other issues. These seems to be the major ones and ones of importance to me. I plan on doing issue posts in the future on some more minor issues addressed by the candidates. My overall impression of McCain has changed since he originally announced he would be running. Except on a few issues, he differs very little than most of the extreme conservative candidates and Bush himself. Because change is necessary for America, it seems very unlikely that he will take the presidency.

60% chance of nomination