Why do you characterize such people as "emotional hotheads"? I've seen at least as many posts on this thread from moderates ranting about those more conservative.
Right now, I'm leaning toward sitting this one out but may wind up pulling the lever for McCain - but I'll be voting with my foot and holding my nose with both hands. McCain has no interest in stopping illegal immigration; he's shown himself to be a big-business bashing Earth hugger in the way he's climbed on the global warming/Kyoto accord; he's certainly no supply-sider; he's the ringleader of the "gang of 14" that squandered the opportunity to ensure that President Bush's conservative judicial nominees received a fair up/down vote; he's sponsored legislation that attempts to crush my first amendment rights; he considers Sandra Day O'Connor to be a splendid jurist, etc. etc..
The problem isn't so much that McCain isn't conservative - it's that he is so far away from conservatism on many crucial issues. It's the old "democrat takes the country to hell in a handbasket, and McCain does the same, except that he phases it in over 5 years" argument. It took a Jimmy Carter to make Ronald Reagan president - perhaps an incompentant Obama administration may give rise to a true conservative alternative. Of course, the other consideration is whether our country could safely endure another democrat administration, especially with a democrat congress. I honestly don't know, and that's what I have to decide over the next few months.
I don't mean to single you out, but this is a logical argument in which each side can make a defensible case and resorting to name-calling isn't going to move things along in a positive manner.
Sitting out an election and helping elect Hillary or Obama isn't rationale nor logical to me. I reject a strategy of electing dems in the dire hope that the public will later accept a more conservative candidate later. Makes no sense. In the next 4-8 years a large number of SC justices will be replaced. I would prefer McCain to pick them rather than Hillary or Obama.
Elections are ALWAYS about comparative choices as no candidate agrees with a voter completely on issues. We are where we are. No one is happy about that - least of all me. But I vote with my head not my emotions. Elections are not personal - it just business.