A friend recently asked me who he should vote for and what I thought about the candidates. I’ve already voted for Obama, so I decided to show him why I voted for Obama and why I think voting for McCain is a terrible idea.

The reasons are listed below. If you’d like any information on any points, or sources, let me know!

OBAMA — reasons you should vote FOR him.

1. Your taxes will go down under him. You receive less than 250,000 a year, and thus this will help you.
2. You ability to get health care once you are on your own will be much easier if you vote for Obama.
3. He is pro-choice, but as our economy sucks right now, I doubt anything will be active on this front anyways.
4. He is not against the war, but believes we need to pull out. He voted against funding for troops WITHOUT a time table, which is different than voting against the troops.
5. He is favored by economists around the US and world, because his economic plan is wonderful.
6. He is Christian, not Muslim, and half Africa, not Arab. Although, as Colin Powell said: why would it matter if he WERE a Muslim or an Arab?
7. His running mate, Joe Biden, is ready to be president, thank God, if anything should happen to him.
8. Biden also boasts impressive foreign-policy experience through his years in the senate.
9. Obama and Biden agree that diplomacy is the best way to get things done internationally. That means sitting down without pre-conditions, and not saying “I’m not talking to you until you say I am right.” Other major people (including Henry Kissinger, who endorsed McCain) agree with Obama.

“Former U.S.Secretary of State Henry Kissinger today told an audience in Washington, DC that the U.S. should negotiate with Iran “without conditions” and that the next President should begin such negotiations at a high level.”

10. Obama is for energy independence, and realizes that off shore drilling is not going to get us more oil now. He favors telling oil companies they need to tap into land they already own rather than tapping into new lands, and if they don’t use the land they already own then we’ll take it back, since it’s wasting hundreds of acres that we could be using in other ways.

MCCAIN — reasons you should vote AGAINST him.

1. He was part of the Keating 5. (this needs explanation, please see link: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23316912/makebelieve_maverick/print
2. He has continually smeared Obama and done nothing to curb hatred at his rallies. You have probably heard people scream “Kill him” and “Terrorist.” It’s no wonder, when McCain’s running mate says Obama is “palling around with terrorists.” Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers is nothing more than a business relationship that many other people–Republicans and Democrats–have with him. And, oh, one more thing: he was acquitted. So…
3. McCain believes that we should be in Iraq for longer, and that we should stay there to “win.” Guess what: you can’t win an occupation. Meanwhile, he also voted against the troops because he didn’t support a time line, so he’s just as at-fault as he claims Obama is. McCain was in Vietnam, and the fact that he thinks we need to stay in Iraq means to me that he learned nothing from his time in Vietnam.
4. McCain has changed his mind on everything he once stood for, including regulation.

“But, McCain’s flip-flops represent an even bigger affront to the straight talk he promises voters.

As a presidential candidate, McCain now opposes his own immigration plan. He backs the Bush tax cuts he once opposed with contempt. While McCain presents himself as a maverick feared by lobbyists and special interests, his campaign has many ties to both and includes staffers who were once lobbyists.

Last week, the Republican called for lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling, a dramatic contrast with his strong support for upholding the moratorium during his 2000 bid for the Republican nomination.

A former prisoner of war, who suffered torture in Vietnam, McCain has called for the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay to be closed and for torture to be banned. Last week, he criticized the US Supreme Court for “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country” after the court ruled that detainees should be allowed to challenge their detentions in US courts.

McCain has also been trying to distance himself even further from an earlier comment that it “would be fine with me” if the US military stayed in Iraq “for a hundred years,” a remark he qualified at the time with the condition that Americans were not being injured or killed.

Meanwhile, McCain is blasting Obama for opting out of public financing. But as Media Matters for America reports, McCain is being asked by federal elections officials to show that he did not use the promise of public money to obtain a $4 million loan to kickstart his once faltering presidential campaign. Doing so would be disingenuous from a candidate who is routinely described as a champion of campaign finance reform.”
(from a Boston.com article, in the Boston Globe.)

5. McCain chose Sarah Palin. A woman who is not qualified to run anything, even Wasilla, Alaska. A woman who flaunts her children around like they are accessories, when they should be home, resting, being children. A woman who has been found to have broken ethics laws in Alaska, and who recently was found to have abused her spending abilities by charing her children’s travel to the state.
6. McCain is for the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Which has more to do with the privacy of men and women rather than the idea of abortion. Another conservative or two on the Supreme Court means that our country will quickly take away more of our privacy, including abortion rights and other rights (think phones, internet, etc.) I encourage you to watch this video, in addition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk6t_tdOkwo
7. He is a jerk. I know this is not a very good reason, but alas: he left his first wife for Cindy, and had an extra-marital affair with Cindy while he was still married to his first wife. He divorced her because he wasn’t ready to suffer with her, since she had been horribly injured in an accident. In his first wives’ first words, “My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens…it just does.” I can’t get over that. I hate cheating, and I find it offensive that he cheated on his wife. He could have waited until he was divorced, if he really loved Cindy and cared about his wife Carol, but he didn’t. And I can’t forgive him for that.
8. He voted against MLK, Jr. day, and voted against the Katrina commission, and voted against a million other things I am appalled at.
9. He sang the song, “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.” NOT FUNNY. Not funny. Not funny. Can that be any more clear how NOT FUNNY and NOT APPROPRIATE that was?
10. He doesn’t respect many civil rights and liberties. Among them, equality in marriage and civil liberties for detainees.