Originally published at Curious's Journal. You can comment here or there.

I might not vote libertarian this year. Before I explain my choice, I’m going explain why the war in Iraq plays such a large role in my vote this election. Then, I’ll go into the candidates that are running. From there I’ll try to come to some sort of decision, hopefully.

The War

Reminders about the build up to the war for people who may not remember:
-The IAEA and UN found no evidence of continued nuclear or WMD development
-Iraq was at the time cooperating with inspections
-Bush could not get the UN to go along with an attack
-Bush could not get Nato to go along either
-Bush couldn’t even get France or Germany to join us
-Bush started giving random ultimatums including the “your either with us or against us” (which pretty much turn everyone else away from joining us)
-Bush started a war without a clear objective or exit strategy - no end game - no plan B if things didn’t work out
-When Bush started the war, he didn’t even invest enough resources.
-Most importantly almost no politician or media stood up to say, “Hey, this might be a bad idea.”

To me, it seemed so clear that in the lead up to the war something was wrong, and someone needed to say or do something - almost no one did. If it was clear to ME that something was wrong, it sure as hell should have been clear to SOMEONE who was in the halls of power.

Obama was not a US Senator when the Iraq vote took place, so we can’t say for certain how he would have voted on the bill. None the less, he started speaking out against going to war in October 2002 (the war officially started started Feb 2003). Obama clearly saw what I saw.  McCain on the other hand not only supported the war, but in various interviews suggested the war could go on for 100 years (ala war in Korea).  Now, Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate, voted for the Iraq war. Can you believe that?

Since so few people spoke out against the war in those days maybe information to congress folk was censored or limited somehow… I don’t know either way I had to dig deeper - esp. if I was going to vote for a candidate that did not share the beliefs in all the same freedoms I believe in.

Libertarian Bob Barr

Not sure I buy it.
-One of the most successfully anti-medical marijuana congressmen gets voted out, possibly due to his anti-medical marijuana views (now says war on drugs was wrong)
-Voted for Defense of Marriage Act (now say states should choose)
-Did I mention that he voted for the war?

Also, I spent  a lot of time,energy, and money trying to get Ron Paul the Republican nomination. He lost. I think my efforts with Ron Paul helped energize a new generation of libertarians, or if nothing else - got people to google libertarianism ;). My Ron Paul activities made my libertarian mark for the year.  So, this year I plan to vote for a candidate that has a chance of winning. Ron Paul had the fourth largest vote count in the Republican primaries!

Republican John McCain

McCain bothers me greatly because he seems to want things both ways all the time. He claims to be pro-free market, but he won’t defend it, unless you count him attacking Obama’s proposal for not being free market as demonstrating pro-free market views. If he is truly pro-free market, why didn’t he argue against socializing the bank’s losses? If he had the balls to stand behind his alleged “pro-free market” world view he likely would have gotten my vote. Now we are stuck. We going down the path of bailing out the banks So now we HAVE to go down the road of regulating the banks even future to reduce the likelihood of this happening in the future.

The ability of a candidate to make sound judgement is extremely important to me. McCain failed this task. Not only did he not unquestioned the war, but he mad an extremly poor chose for running mate. The VP is the person who handles tie votes in the senate and takes the president’s place whenever he is unable to lead. If you don’t know why Palin was a bad pick, ping me and I’ll explain, don’t want to get too off track with this write up.   After Palin was picked and we all discovered how bad of a choice she was, the McCain camp could have had Palin pull out of the campaign to take care of her kids. This would have been a politically acceptable reason for her to back out and would have greatly improved my view of McCain.

McCain has no clear vision for the economy. He seems to shift his views with the polls or possibly though encouragement from special interests. I don’t know. Both Obama and Barr have a solid economic agenda which is vital when the economy is going down hill as hard and fast as it is. Hell, the one big thing he said over and over he was going to do, he isn’t even going to do that. He said many times that was going to institute a complete spending freeze, yet he has been making exceptions even before the election is complete.

McCain is the most anti civil liberty candidate of the bunch. McCain went so far as to vote for the anti-flag-desicration amendment to the constitution.  The ACLU gave him a 17% score for last season, and 22% lifetime. He voted against Habeas Corpus, and for giving telecoms immunity from prosecution. He also voted to remove judicial protections to detainees  Hell, he even voted to ban raves! Btw, did I mention Palin was a bad bet? She is even MORE anti-civil liberty then McCain. Yea, Palin supported book bans, and full abortion bans (even in cases of health/rape/incest).  With the exception of gun rights, these guys do not appear to be very pro-personal freedom.

The McCain health plan is odd. It’s like he just said “lets just throw $5k per person to insurance companies”  Wait, what? What is that supposed to do? What does that solve?  There seems to be no overall vision behind it… it’s like it was dreamed up so that McCain would have a health policy. Again reaffirming my view that there is no overriding vision of the future with McCain. If I was looking for a CEO for any company, McCain seems like he would be the worst pick.

I worry that McCain’s presidency is going to be as hypocritical and misleading as his campaignCampaign is. Rather then debate issues McCain chose to spend the ending of the last debate focusing on the fact that Obama had associated with a 60’s extremist and on the fact that Obama hired ACORN to get out the vote for the primaries. If these issues are really important to you, I strongly recommend you check out the wikipedia entries for these things to get a more balanced view. The wikipedia entries provide footnotes and references. If you click on “Discussion” you can see all the points of contention within the articles.

Not only do I feel that these associations are non-issues… McCain and Palin’s associations are far worse. McCain was the only senator out of the Keating five ever to receive funds from him. Oh, and “Joe the Plumber’s” dad is Charles Keating’s son in law. Lets throw Palin in to the mix… Palin’s husband was a member of the UnAmerican Alaskan Independence Party between 1995 and 2006. The AIP just a group of people who sit around at a dinner dreaming of an independent state. They are very active, the founder of the party actually went to the UN, worked with the Iranian delegation to help them separate with the rest of America. Palin actually spoke to the folks at the AIP convention THIS YEAR.  Oh BTW, did I mention that McCain participated in ACORN events? You can read ACORN’s response to this mess here: www.beyondchron.org/articles/ACORN_Teaches_McCain_About_Power_of_Community_Organizing_6211.html. Rather then go on, I just want to get back to my point. In the end, these things don’t really matter all that much. I’m sure all the presidential and vice presidential candidates have little skeletons in their closet. I’m sure each has done things they probably shouldn’t have in their lifetime. The more McCain makes these kinds of attacks, the less substance I believe he has. If he wins, I think we can expect excessive hypocrisy, deception, and outright lies.

Key Positions:
-Spending freeze (with an increasing list of exemptions)
-Cut Corp taxes from 35% to 25%
-Keep 35% tax cap
-http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/JobsforAmerica/taxes.htm
-pro gun rights (big +)
-anti-abortion rights
-tends to vote for bills that mix church state (ie school prayer)
-work towards energy independence
-nuclear friendly (big +)

Democrat Barack Obama

Obama impressed me early on by being one of few politicians to question the war before we got into it. We need a president that will take that extra moment of time to question going to war before we send people into harms way. We also need a president who is willing to make himself available to talk to enemies if it improves our safety and position in the world. However, he also wants our goverment to take a much larger role in our lives, which to be honest creeps the hell out of me.

Lets get to the elephant in the room, the liberal economic views of Obama. This is the heaviest pill I have to swallow before I can vote for him. Obama believes that the best way to move the country forward is for the government to invest more in what he feels are the core needs of americans. Those needs are health care, education, and sound energy policy. In addition to these things he was to reshape the current tax structure to lower the impact on 95% of Americans. At the same time he plans to raise the taxes on on everyone else with the bulk of the increase resting the the shoulders of large corporations. This is the ugliest piece of Obama’s plan, his plan forces those who are the most successful to contribute a larger share of their income. The reason this doesn’t bother me as much as it should, is because I’m selfish - my taxes will go down in Obama’s plan. Additionally folks I know who are not as fortunate as I am will be paying MUCH less in taxes (especially compared to McCain’s plan).  As for Obama’s health plan, he wants to try to negotiate lower health rates, offer a government backed health plan to compete against the market and insure that health care companies can’t reject coverage for preexisting conditions. With education, he plans to fund mandates like no child left behind and head start, support charter schools, etc. And to quote some school administrator Energy blah blah blah ;). So, yea more government, a government that competes with private business, and some changes in taxes. As yucky as all this is, it at its core based on the belief that everyone is entitled to health care, education, and as a nation we need sound energy. If I gotta be taxed, it’s nice to know that if I or any other American ever develops cancer or some other ailment that becomes a “preexisting” condition - it’s  covered. BTW. if you look around, most industrialized nations have government sponsored health care and have been fine doing it for a long time.

As for civil/social liberties, Obama got an 82% rating from ACLU. He voted opposite McCain in all the issues mentioned in the McCain section, except for the anti rave law since he wasn’t in office at the time. While he isn’t nearly as pro-personal rights as most libertarians, he certainly scored better then McCain.

Key positions:
To improve the core of America the government needs to:
-insure all kids have health coverage
-make sure insurance won’t be able to reject based on previous conditions
-make health care more affordable
-make education more affordable
-improve education by funding and improving government mandates
-work for energy independence
-give those making less then $250K a tax break
(note: Obama has a tax break calculator online) taxcut.barackobama.com/

BTW two points (besides the stuff I talked already) that bother me about Obama when compared to McCain:
-not quite as nuclear friendly as McCain
-not quite as gun friendly as McCain

Who will it be?

So, I started putting this together for me. This document started off as a bunch of pro/con bullet points  for each candidate. I’ve left out a lot of stuff including the divisiveness of McCain’s policies, the role religion plays in politics/government under each administration, the role of science in education and policy and lots of minor issues with each candidate. I left these things out because this document is long enough as it is and I would probably need to spend a lot more time explaining why each of those issues were important - detracting from what I had so far. Anyways, as I started to realize that my vote was may very well be not just a nonlibertiarian vote, but some may argue an antilibertarian vote, I needed to make sure I could explain my vote. You see, I feel that if you can’t explain something, you don’t really understand it and you are possibly just following a bunch of lemmings.

So it boils down to this:
-I really wish the Libertarian party had a chance this year
-A true free market approach would protect our economy in the long run
-McCain and Obama are not Libertarians
-McCain and Obama want to tax and spend
-The economy and our country - in disarray
-McCain had his chance to show he was pro-free market, but he voted for the bailout
-McCain appears to have no real vision for the country
-McCain appears to put politics before substance
-McCain scored worse on civil liberties
-McCain’s judgments have not been very sound
-Obama has a clear vision for the country
-Obama’s vision is not going to cost much more then McCain’s
-Obama was smart and brave enough to question the war before we went in
-Obama is willing to use every diplomatic solution that is available - before going to war

So, yea the libertarian party will be getting one less vote this year. Unless someone is able to present me with REALLY good reasons not to vote for Obama: he will be getting my vote.