Actually Goergia attacked South Ossetia first and georgian troops were dumb enough to start attacking the Russian peace keeping forces in the country. Its the North American media that we have here that is ignoring the facts and spreading bullshit.

McCain still does support embyronic stemcell research.

He's actually been one of it's biggest supporters ever since he sat down with Pro-stemcell research people and went through the science.

That's McCain's biggest strength. He's willing to listen to the facts and consider any position to make the right choice. (unlike the current president.)

Heck he did the same thing with drilling in Anwar. He used to be one of the biggest opponents against it, until gas prices got high and he looked at the technology which would allow us to drill there cleanly.

McCain's changes seem based on logical reasoning and changing circumstances vs getting votes.

Like Obama promising to fillbuster any FISA bill that offered immunity... then once he got those peoples votes, double backing and voting on the bill. (The large amount of telcom money he's received in campaign donations probably had something to do with that.)

Or his backing of public financing as the only honest way to run an election... until he realized he was going to raise more money then McCain.

Or the fact that he talks about a new kind of politics... yet the only adds I ever see on TV are political attack adds approved by him.

That's my biggest problem with Obama. It's hard to tell what he actually believes and what he's saying to win votes.

To get votes in the Mid West he says he wants to renegotiate NAFTA. In germany he says he supports world wide free trade... which would be the opposite of that more or less.

He says McCain is bloodthirsty for saying attacking Iran is a final option, but says in Jerusalem he wouldn't hesitate to attack Iran.

Bashes McCain for wanting to keep a small detachment of troops in iraq, but says he wants to keep a small "strikeforce" of troops in iraq to strike at terrorists in the region.

It's not even like he's changing his mind. He still talks of one, while talking about the other later that day. It's just outright confusing for anyone who wants a fair assesment of how the candidates would act.

Well second biggest.

The Ethanol thing is just REALLY bad... poor people all across the globe can't afford even basic rice anymore just so large agriculture companys can rake in the billions... there is almost as much money in ethanol as their is oil currently. The tens of millions of people effected by this makes the iraq war look like childs play.

Small governments are being toppled and public order screwed up because of this.

I'm hoping he's forced to recant his support in the debates... if they happen.  This... not Iraq is the most imporant issue this campaign when it comes to saving lives and helping the world.

Obama is pushing for as few debaes as possible... another way he's like Bush!

Though with as screwy as that last debate was i'd be aprhensive, but that's a matter of picking better moderators. Not forgoeing hoenst debate.

I don't understand why people alwaysoften have to defend or attack each candidate on every point.

You would make much better arguments if you kept it rational. Obama and McCain both have their strengths and weaknesses. Both have things that everybody would be able to agree with if they weren't polarized by the political parties. I like the idea of the parties, but individual voters should be able to look beyond the party platform. When people argue for a single platform they just seem silly.

The running of the United States, our international policy, the economy and security are too important to gloss over with check lists and little inflammatory blurbs. It would also be appreciated if you would refrain mixing up facts with partisan myths.

The strength of discussing politics on the internet is that we can put aside 10 second blurbs, think through our posts, and say what we mean completely and clearly. Let's take advantage of that.

Candidates say a lot of things to get elected (and will vote that way during campaign season - Examples: McCain tax rebate, Obama surveillance). When they are in office they react to legislation according to their longer voting records. Of course, Senatorial voting records have very little to do with how an executive acts.

@Sqrl, BTW: Here is McCain saying that he agrees with a lady who says: "If we don't reenact the draft, we won't have anybody left to chase Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell."

Saying that he agrees is a bad thing to say, I don't think he meant it as such.



The lady's question was much (much) longer, and his response is cut off too.

Here is the longer version where he explains a little more...



Take it as you will. The short version is the inflammatory stuff that I mentioned in my previous post. The longer version isn't too different from any previous president or Obama's answer.

I wouldn't want the president to not consider the draft if needed.

(I support Obama, but I hate lies about important stuff.)

The debate on this forum has become so polarized that I don't think any of us are going to influence the other.  At the end of the day, we can only base our expectations, and our perceived expectations, on the character of the person we are voting for.

You had a lot of good points in your post that I have deleted to highlight these two, because I think it is the essential defining difference we see in these candidates.  If you swap McCain and Obama in those two sentences, you have my expect viewpoint based on my judgement of their characters.

There is no number crunching or fact checking that can be done to sway either one of us at this point, I believe, as we have already judged them to be something they may or may not be.

Also, this dogged opposition to Obama from numerous people has caused me to defend him more staunchly than I normally would.  I actually really, really liked him earlier in the year, but while I still think he is the better candidate than McCain, I do not align with him on as many issues as it may seem like.  Also, while I am not a democrat or republican, I consider religious conservates one of the worst threats to our country.  Obama at least seems to be a religious liberal, and his voting record proves it. 

I'm pretty much done trying to argue points, but I did want to point out that regarding the internet, sure, McCain says he supports a moratorium on net taxes (so does Obama), but he has sided with the telecoms on net neutrality.

John McCain agreed with George Bush over 90 percent of the time in Congress, so saying that McCain will be any different is merely wishful thinking.

I hope John McCain wins, that means a shitty American ecnomy and cheaper shopping for me whenever I go there.

ManusJustus: That's pretty weird, even though they are both republican, I would have imagined a war veteran (particularly a vietnam war veteran) would be less of a war monger after seeing firsthand what war (particularly pointless wars) can do to people, both armed forces and civilians.

I'm going for Obama, not because he's black, but because he's charismatic as hell.

See you see these two differently but you have no facts to support it.

If you could give me reasons for why he changed his position... or in reality seemingly holds two positions on a lot of issues i'd agree they were both like that.

I was going to vote for Obama. I voted for him in the primaries. Or rather was going to until I got sick and missed the vote. However it's been his amazing changes soley for political gain that lost my vote.

McCain's changes i can actually look at an event that happened recently for his change.  Usually it's the economy or Gas prices.

Republican style economics is good when the markets are doing bad, and Democratic style economics are good when the economy is good.

Obama... I can't and not only that he tries to claim he never changed his position.

Everytime... now he supports offshore drilling, before he said he didn't. Says it wasn't a policy change.

His promise for a race where both candidates used public funding if the republican did. Says it wasn't a policy change when it's obvious he's just doing it because he thinks he has a better chance at winning.

Says he's for ammending NAFTA, yet also for world wide free trade. Says it's not a policy change.

On the bright side it seems like Iraq won't be too much of an issue. Things have been going there better then expected.

The troop deployment deal happened exactly how i thought it would.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7577730.stm