This morning my husband and I took our usual morning walk around the neighborhood and came across a car with a McCain bumper sticker. The car's owner was out watering his plants and I desperately wanted to ask him why he was supporting McCain. My husband wanted to lecture him, but I just wanted to say "why for god's sake?"
And the question still lingers in my mind. Why? Why would anyone in their right mind vote for John McCain to be the next president of the United States?
First of all, at 71 he's way too old. I am 61 and I think I'm too old. I'm pretty intelligent and my mind is still sharp, but your mind and body are simply not the same in your sixties and seventies as when you are in your forties or fifties. And everyone my age and older should admit that. The presidency involves stress that I can't even begin to imagine, much more stress than campaigning, and far more stress than being a wealthy Senator, especially when you haven't even been to the Senate since last April.
Second, we are in the midst of a recession, and John McCain claims to be a "fiscal conservative" who would continue all the same economic policies of George W. Bush that helped get us into this mess in the first place. Tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations, outsourcing of jobs, no concern for high unemployment numbers, no regulation of the mortgage and banking industries, the largest deficit in history, a desire to privatize Social Security, and ongoing subsidies to big oil when they made more profits last quarter than any other corporations ever.
Third, John McCain is not an intelligent man. He graduated near the bottom of his class at Annapolis, and shows no signs of having increased his IQ since then. He can't remember what he voted for last year, or the year before, gets his facts wrong, can't remember which countries are still countries and which terrorist groups belong to which sect of Islam. Either this is stupidity or dementia, and we don't want either in our president. We have suffered through eight years with a mental lightweight in the oval office. Do we want another four years of that?
Fourth, John McCain always goes back to what he knows: war. As a career naval officer he knows and appreciates war. What he doesn't know is diplomacy, geography, and peace. John McCain will not get us out of Iraq and will look for ways to start trouble with Iran. He likes the tough guy persona and that is not what this country or world needs right now.
There are many other reasons not to vote for McCain, including his smarmy attack ads which contain lies and distortions about his opponent, but I'll save some of those for another post.
What I can't understand is how anyone who simply acknowledged the above truths (and they are truths) would still vote for McCain. Or is that the problem? McCain's supporters can't or won't acknowledge the truth.
