I see Clinton and McCain as about equally likely to invade Iran, and Obama as less so. I see Clinton as the most pro-censorship of the three (McCain's voted repeatedly for a flag-burning ban, but she fucking SPONSORED one), and while her stance on video games isn't nearly as important as her stance on war, I don't like the manipulative scapegoating of new media. Plus there was that crap awhile back about how young people don't know the value of a hard day's work. As far as I'm concerned she's made it clear she doesn't want anyone under 30 to vote for her, and I'm happy to oblige.
All that said, Kazz clearly hates her a lot more than I do. I don't want to see her as President, but it'd certainly be preferable to a hypothetical third Bush term. For one, you could count on the Republicans to put a swift end to warrantless wiretapping, signing statements, and all those other hideous abuses of Presidential power that are A-OK when their guy does them. And Bill as an envoy to the Middle East would be pretty much a best-case scenario. (Not to say that'd be out of the question in an Obama administration, either. Hell, it'd be unlikely in a McCain administration, but not impossible.)
There are a few things about McCain that frighten me. First and foremost is that he's WAY more of a right-winger than he's perceived to be. He takes moderate stances on campaign finance, immigration, stem cell research, says he doesn't like torture, and votes against the anti-gay marriage amendment, and bam, suddenly he's perceived as a moderate.
He's not a moderate. He's pro-war, pro-life, anti-gay, wants prayer in schools (and the Ten Commandments to be displayed in same). Anyone wants to scope out his record,
ontheissues.org seems pretty accurate and thorough from a brief read-through.
The worst thing about McCain, though, is the same problem the others have -- you don't really know where he stands. That used not to be the case; he used to be very consistent. But I think his beating in '00 led him to an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality (see also: Hillary Clinton cozying up to big pharma), and where he was condemning Falwell 8 years ago, he was speaking at his university last year. Hell, he even caved on torture and sought "compromises" with the Bush Administration that led to the Military Commissions Act. (He didn't vote for it, but he still helped it happen.) There are a lot of issues I've never agreed with McCain on, but I at least respected him as an honest politician; I even voted for him in '04 (another race, it bears noting, where my vote didn't matter; I think he took over 80% and I don't even remember the name of the Dem challenger). But I no longer trust him. I think, his big grin notwithstanding, he's become cynical and will do anything to win.
Anyway. On the subject of Clinton and, more to the point, her pushier supporters, August has a good blog post titled
Hillary, protect me from your followers.
It's clear that, perhaps latent from a year back or so when she was the "inevitable" candidate, a lot of Clinton's supporters still believe that Democrats/progressives are somehow obligated to vote for Hillary, and as a result it doesn't make any difference how mean, nasty, or berating to Obama supporters they are.
[...]
In even simpler terms, Hillary's supporters really seem to be forgetting the actual election is in November. That Hillary is the establishment candidate makes it much more difficult for Hillary supporters to motivate Obama supporters to come around than vice-versa. I'm sorry if they want to whine about that being "unfair" but, well, tough shit. They need to learn pretty much yesterday that being complete assholes to Obama supporters isn't going to be a great strategy in motivating them to vote after the primaries are over.
