Those who want Freedom and Democracy to succeed in Iraq, resulting in a normal imperfect, too corrupt, gov't that includes hypocrites and panderers, will be supporting McCain.

It probably helps that the Maliki gov't is winning against Sadr now, so claims of anti-war folk that Iraq “is an absolute failure” look wrong. Whether it was worth the cost is a totally different question, and if an anti-war person switches from “it's a failure” to “it wasn't worth it”, that's implicitly saying it's not a failure.

2) Abortion — McCain has an excellent pro-life voting record. His 1999 SF comment is certainly confusing/ mushy:

“I'd love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary,” McCain told the Chronicle in an article published Friday. “But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.”

I wish the pro-life folk were more interested in promoting adoption, especially cross-racial adoption by whites of unwanted black babies.

For any candidate, the voting record, not the speech, should be the main thing. Obama's voting record is far-left support for partial birth abortion, abortion on demand. I think it's also for minors to get abortions without informing the parents, but I'm not yet sure.

3) McCain is wrong, and Obama is better, on gas taxes — to reduce demand, gas tax increases are better. Certainly it's better than higher income taxes. BUT, to say it's “nothing” is just wrong. It's a clear indication of where Al Gore and the Greenies have failed: action to reduce CO2 means higher taxes/prices, and “doing something” means the voters have to pay more. The Dems haven't been willing to be honest about this since Gary Hart's 50cent gas tax (which I'd now support). Voters are concerned, but do NOT want to pay more.

3b) After the tax cuts, the top tax rate payers paid a higher percentage of income tax received by the Feds. They also created more jobs, both in and out of America, which kept the unemployment rate so low.

Obama has great talk, but his voting walk is what should really be looked at. Do Dems really want to leave Iraq and accept new Killing Fields?
No way of knowing what would happen …
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

This is what I find hard to stomach- the presumptions that no intelligent and intellectually honest person could look at the same facts and come to different conclusions. You see Obama as the best person to take the country in the direction that you want it to go, and I see that McCain is the best person to take it in the direction that I think it would be best for us to go. Can't we respectfully disagree about that? I apologize, BTW, if it seemed that I was lumping you in with people who support Obama on faith- that wasn't what I meant by that statement, I was only pointing out that this type of support for candidates is always present among some voters. And then I tried to explain why I dispute your assertion that my position on McCain's immigration stance is of that sort. I don't get your dismissal of that as 'not adding to the discussion'; I find it rather absurd that you can mischaracterize me and then refuse to consider my defense on the grounds that it adds nothing to the discussion.

We are again, on totally different pages.

That some of Obama's fans are guilty of the same thing says nothing about how I or other people assess McCain. Two errors are just two errors.

Expanding on why you have faith in McCain and even channeling his rationale doesn't add a thing to the discussion. It only prolongs it on the same old circular race track.

Then, too, I react badly to hard sell techniques. The harder someone pushes, the more likely I am to push back.

Not wishing to be rude, I'll take the time to explain why I'm getting off this train.

I do support Obama, but unlike you, I see his flaws as well as his assets.
When I think he's wrong, I say so. I've expressed disappointment in him on several occasions.
I don't accept the politics of painting anyone as perfect or anyone as totally disreputable.

I support, first and foremost, Obama's main ideas rather than Obama, the man, or .Obama the politician or Obama the Democrat. How much he will accomplish,remains to be seen, but he is by far the best of the three to get anything done along the lines that I would like this country to go. That's my judgment.

We are simply on very different philosophical tracks,

And there's also the fact that in the case of his immigration 'shift', I don't see accepting his firm statement now as true as resting on faith. If his change is due to an understanding of the political reality, then it is axiomatic to me that he will in fact act in the way he now says he will- there is nothing that predicts a politicians actual future actions better than getting a read on how THEY read the political landscape. That's what they live and die by- so there's just no logical reason to suspect that they won't do everything possible to deliver on a promise that's made on that basis. I'd be more troubled if he were saying that his current agreement to secure the borders first were due to some kind of epiphany about the wisdom of doing it that way- I wouldn't believe him in that case. But when he's willing to piss off the hardcore conservative base by phrasing it like this “I'll give you the damn fence”, it doesn't seem like pandering to me, but rather a frank acknowledgement that he's willing to do what he has to do based on the political reality.

Those who want to see McCain elected put instant and automatic faith in his statements, at every twist and turn of his road. Simultaneously, they are vociferous about placing doubt and suspicion in the statements of other candidates who stand in his way.
That's politics and it often crosses over into being political campaigning.

It doesn't work that way for poeple who are not on McCain's election 'team'.
I don't think I could vote for him in any case, but I'm trying to be as fair as I can.
The fairh of McCain's fans is not transferrable to me. People like I will need more time to get a sense of his vision and approach to problem solving as well as politics.

To repeat: the faih of McCain's fans is not transferrable to others on a say so basis.
Those others need more time, quite a lot more time.

Just one area of my puzzlement is Immigration. He has backed away from the bill he cosponsored. Does that reflect a change of conviction or a change in political assessment?

He has stated pretty clearly that it's the latter- that he still believes in the wisdom (almost necessity) of comprehensive immigration reform but he sees the political reality- that people understandably don't trust the govt to really follow through with border security as part of a broader approach. Since the resistance based on that was what prevented passage of his bill, he's now saying he heard the message and he'll push for borders to be secured first and then move on to the rest after the border states certify that border passage is controlled.

I don't really understand the statements about Independents. How can they organize into anything but single/limited issue groups and still be Independent.? What platform would they have?

He will be a liberal Democratic President trying to do the best he can to lead a country of 300 million people.

Wouldn't that be great? I doubt it though. Obama is pretty tame when it comes to ideology.

I'm only going by what you write here.

I don't think winning in 2008 will motivate the Republican Party to change.

And if John McCain were to win, it could only be with independents voting for him. Don't you think that after the fact, some of them will be surprised when they find out he is a Republican after all.

McCain has shown some extreme confusion about basic foreign policy matters (ex: Shiite and Sunni groups, thought Petraeus was Centcom not just Iraq commander, saying we needed to put stuff in “Yugoslavia”) and has also tried to flat out deny several things that he said even when they were on tape…let alone some quick reversals on policies without much explanation. I think at present there is a huge gap between perception and his current platform.

He also has a big enough closet that the Obama campaign will have no problem picking out skeletons without having to appear too negative. If you were to go alphabetically I can think of at least 2 that start with K.

I can't wait for their first debate.

I don't think I am looking for excuses. I don't like what the GOP has become, you are correct. But I don't think the answer is to leave the party, at least not now. Many have left and the party has only grown more conservative, not less. I also don't think I am a good fit in Democratic party. I don't hate Dems, I just respectfully disagree. I think I can make a change by standing up within the party and sharing my views which is what I have done.

As for voting for the GOP, I think you assume too much about me. I didn't vote for W. in 2004 because of some his stances. You shouldn't assume that just because I am in the party, that I just vote for anyone with an R behind their name. If McCain or Giuliani wasn't the nominee, I would probably not vote Republican this year because I didn't agree with the other candidates.

So, yes I don't like what the party has become, but I want to change it and not just walk away and let the far right win.

*** FLAT EARTH *** And water flows uphill, too…