Whom To Vote For?

So, I don’t know if you’ve heard or not, but there’s a pretty big election coming up in the next month or so.

I’ve talked before about how I’m not a Barack Obama fan. I disagree strongly with his views on abortion, which is a deal-breaker for me, but I have other problems with him as well.

Unfortunately, as a person, I think he’s probably a better guy than John McCain. I come closer to agreeing with McCain on a lot of issues, and, as I’ve written before, in some ways, McCain is a very admirable guy.

But on the whole, he seems to be a big jerk. He’s infamous for his terrible temper, he slept around all over the place on his first wife, and it’s really hard for me to respect a guy who would say things like this to his current wife (and in public!).

So it looks like I’m in need of a different candidate*, and it’s for that purpose that I’m writing this blog post—to accept nominations for a write-in candidate.

The first nomination I received a while back from my brother, and it’s a pretty good one: Optimus Prime.

I think Optimus has a lot of characteristics that would make him an ideal President. Consider:

• He would bring an entire new meaning to “Commander-in-Chief.” I’m not even sure we’d need an army anymore.
  
• International Negotiations: This goes along with the first point I guess, but seriously, can you imagine Ahmadinejad or Hugo Chavez doing anything other than treating Prime with the utmost respect?
• Over and over he has staunchly supported and affirmed the value of all human life.
• He’s the wisest and most noble of all Autobots.
  

But on the flip side:

• As someone who transforms into an 18-wheeler, Optimus is an inherent and fundamental part of our oil crisis in a way that no other candidate could be.
  
• And the big one: he’s not a native born citizen of the United States. Not at all.

So I guess the nominations are still open…

*I actually hope that McCain wins the election, but I’m just not sure that I could bring myself to vote for him. I’m pretty sure that in my state, it won’t matter though, which is why I’m taking such a light-hearted approach to this.

“Experience” And The U.S. Presidency

There’s been a lot of talk during this election about “experience” and about who’s “qualified” for the job of President and who isn’t.

For a long time, the claims of inexperience were largely directed at Barack Obama, but with McCain’s pick of the relatively unknown Sarah Palin as his VP candidate, both sides are now letting the accusations of inexperience fly.

A couple of thoughts on why I think all of this is overblown:

First, it seems clear that neither party really cares too much about having experience in the White House.

After campaigning for so long about how Obama is unqualified for the job because of his lack of experience, it seems a little inconsistent that McCain, an old man who’s had significant health problems, would choose a running mate who is similarly inexperienced when there’s a real chance that she could end up as President.

On the other side, what’s up with the Democrats complaining about the inexperience of Palin (the number two on the Republican ticket), when their would-be President Obama has no experience to speak of either?

Oh, the irony.

Secondly, while I’ll certainly agree that some candidates are more qualified and have more experience than others, and while some presidents have certainly turned out to be up to the job, is anyone really qualified to have the job of the most powerful person on the planet?

I’m thinking the only person in history with that degree of qualification would be Jesus, and He really wasn’t interested in political power…

War Hero

Two political posts in a row? Yuck. I’ll keep this one short.

Everyone knows that John McCain was a war hero and a POW in Vietnam. What I wasn’t aware of were some of the impressive circumstances of his time in captivity. From Wikipedia:

“In mid–1968, McCain’s father was named commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater, and McCain was offered early release. The North Vietnamese made that offer because they wanted to appear merciful for propaganda purposes, and also wanted to show other POWs that elites like McCain were willing to be treated preferentially. McCain turned down the offer of repatriation; he would only accept the offer if every man taken in before him was released as well.”

If only being a war hero were all it took to make someone a viable presidential candidate, I think we’d have a winner.