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I just can't bring myself to voting for McCain. Lots of reasons why, many/most have been or will be enumerated here.

I guess it boils down to the fact that I don't "owe" the GOP or McCain anything

Neither do I. I will be voting for McCain, however. I'm certain he'll continue to seek success in Iraq. Obama and Clinton have both announced that they will flee Iraq as soon as they can.

I'm also confident that I'd rather have McCain handling any upcoming conflict with Iran.

Finally, there's a good possibility that the next president will have two Supreme Court nominations to make. McCain has said publicly that he will seek nominees in the mold of John Roberts and Sam Alito. Obama and Clinton have guaranteed more Ruth Bader Ginsbergs.

We all have our own choices to make. I'm unhappy with McCain on several issues, but I know who I'd rather have making the decisions above.

I have (previously) carefully considered the issues you mention, but there are so many reasons why I simply cannot vote for him.

McCain almost became a Democrat in 2001, according to Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and ex-Rep. Tom Downey. It’s been widely reported that this is true by many people of both parties.

As such, I don’t trust McCain on Supreme Court issues or the war in Iraq. If he thought about becoming a Democrat, he must have thought it was okay, policy-wise.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/democrats-say-mccain-nearly-abandoned-gop-2007-03-28.html

http://polipundit.com/index.php?p=19666

So I don’t see him as a conservative, as he’s seriously considered changing parties. His Supreme Court choices, especially for someone who will almost certainly not run for a second term, are not “in the bag” - there is no personal downside regardless of who he picks.

And I don’t see him as great on the war, given that he has made some major gaffes, showing a huge lack of understanding of the dynamics of the entire region.

For example, McCain has repeated that Iran is training Al Qaeda, which is simply not true. Knowing *why* that is not true is important, but McCain had to rely on Senator Lieberman to correct him (during a speech!) when he repeated it for the second time.

See: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/mccain-misspeaks-on-iran-al-qaeda/

The whole thing is really depressing.