I will vote for the best/least bad candidate that has a reasonable chance of winning (that is, no 3d party candidate will likely get my vote). I want a conservative candidate. No one in the race meets the qualifications of what would be my ideal choice. I don’t think, since Reagan, a candidate ever has.
For me it is country first, ahead of party, and even ahead of political philosophy. We do need to work on the GOP to move it to the unabashedly conservative position it held in years past. (That position is a clear winner of elections, and I don’t know why it has been abandoned.)
Perhaps conservatives did not do the job that they should have done this time in getting a viable candidate to run, or perhaps the electorate has moved away from conservatism (I just can’t believe the latter, but I guess it is possible.). In any event, it looks like we are probably stuck with McCain as the candidate.
I will have much less heartburn if Obama is the dem candidate. I think he is beatable, and the risk of him achieving any of his goals is very low, due to his inexperience and naivete. He comes across to me as a genuine person, but misguided, and seeking a position well above his ability.
McCain is far from ideal, but on the most important issue for me, National Defense, he is much ahead of the others. If he is serious about building the wall along our southern border, we can probably finesse the rest of the immigration issue. I am not for amnesty, but I do support controlled, monitored immigration into this country so that we can continue to benefit from the cheap labor. The cheaters should either be sent home or put to the back of the line, but that is an issue more to do with their hispanic brothers than with the US economy. We had laws. We didn’t enforce them for decades. Shut off the flow, assess the problem and deal with it.
Sorry for the exended post.
>McCain is far from ideal, but on the most important issue for me, National Defense, he is much ahead of the others.
To be fair, Clinton is also pretty safe on this issue. She’s more stalwart than Bill (who supported the Iraq war in the beginning but now has turned tail).
McCain won’t have much to edge Clinton on this issue. He would against Obama.