The two men have vastly different policies on several key issues and that’s why I’m voting for the McCain ticket. In particular, I find Obama’s redistributionist economic ideas antithetical to the pursuit of the American dream. Obama wants to spread the existing wealth around because he sees it as finite; John McCain knows there’s an infinite potential for more wealth, that everyone can enjoy a bigger pie without artificially ensuring it’s a more evenly divided pie.

We need a return to Reaganesque policies, not a move toward Euro-socialism, and McCain understands that. McCain gets it right on Israel, foreign intervention, the role of the Supreme Court … I’ll stop before I write a book here, but I feel that a President Obama would be dangerous on those issues. John McCain could have a nasty temper and a stable of mistresses, and I’d still vote for him to keep Obama from gutting our country.

Yes, electing a black president would be “historical,” but electing a man who will lead our country down the wrong path will lead to chapters in our history books that none of us can afford to have. And electing a black president who employs identity politics to win his position would not be a feather in the country’s cap.

Finally, I find it striking that you refer to GWB’s desire to simplify the world and mention that you’re looking for “better than we’ve had in recent times.” Obama is running against John McCain, not George Bush.

As far as the ‘similar derangement among the right’, I remember quite a bit of derangement during the Clinton years. (Mena, Arkansas, anyone? The murder of Vince Foster / Ron Brown?) And in the years of Bush pere, actually. I think it kind of comes with the territory.

If I’m honest with myself, I think I voted for Obama because he doesn’t seem to need to simplify the world to the extent that the current President Bush does. He speaks eloquently and analytically, and he seems to have a very even temperament. I am impressed with the discipline that he’s shown in the campaign, and in the political and organizational skills that defeated Hillary Clinton. He seems far more grounded, stable, and family oriented than Bill Clinton ever did.

The historical nature of electing a black president also means something to me, in the pure symbolism of the thing.

Good symbolism with good analytic and leadership abilities seems like a pretty good deal, and better than we’ve had in recent times.

Hopefully he doesn’t disappoint if he does get elected.

To Jonathan: wow, you really caught me out there. Politicizing a racially motivated plot to murder dozens of black kids and a presidential candidate is exactly the same as reminding people to consider that liberals have repeatedly shown themselves to be unhinged, aggressive and sometimes criminal in their attacks on the opposition. Oh, wait, “exactly the same” doesn’t mean “completely different.” My bad.

There’s a reason Bush Derangement Syndrome, Palin Derangement Syndrome, and even Joe the Plumber Derangement Syndrome yield hundreds of thousands of hits in Google.

You do make me wonder though, will there be similar derangement among the right if Dems pull off enough victories next week? Somehow I don’t expect that, but hopefully we won’t have to find out.

‘Politicize’.. c’mon. ;-)