Topics:
War in Iraq / Afghanistan: Advantage McCain?
I have been back and forth about 100 times on this one and certainly don't see myself an expert in this by any means. While an unpopular decision I understand why will still are in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just watch Charlie Wilson's War and you will get a good idea. It is absolutely essential that we see that the governments and local security forces are completely established in those regions before we leave. The U.S. has an unfortunate history failing of doing so. Besides, it would be nice to string up Osama Bin Laden, wouldn't it be?
I would support a phased withdrawal from the area, urge for more UN involvement as well as relegate more control and responsibility to the Iraqi government to assist. Immediate withdrawal of our troops would be extremely detrimental to the progress we have made, however.
I don't agree with McCain that we should be there "for 100 years"... another South Korea. I'd like to think Obama's plan is more aligned with my thoughts in regards to a phased withdrawal and increased presence in Afghanistan, but at the same time I am not sure whether the country will be ready or not to govern themselves in that time frame. Very tentative vote for McCain here but looking forward to the debates on this one.
Experience: Advantage McCain.. but I ain't happy about it..
Ok, this was used to be an easy one until McCain picked Palin as his running mate. I mean, come on now, how can you pull the "experience" card when your running mate has even less experience then your opponent and is one heart attack away from running the most powerful country in the world. When comparing the two tandem candidates, I would rate this dead even. However, the purpose of this blog is to compare the presidential candidates so this one goes to McCain.
Just to be clear on my thoughts on Palin, I am not really a fan of her selection because it seems like a bit of gamesmanship rather than picking a VP who is best for the country. I had the following blog forward to me and I thought it was funny. I have not gone to the trouble of researching how true the claims are, so read with caution. But it is funny regardless.
Honesty / Integrity: Advantage Even
I would actually vote both candidates as even on this topic since none have yet to be caught in nasty scandals or downright lies. McCain and Obama have both posted their positions on ethics reform, and have both demonstrated their dedication to reforming federal and state ethics. McCain has a little bit of flip-flopping and allegations of affairs and I am not happy about Obama going back on his plan to only use private funds for his campaign.
This topic, however, is the most likely to change as we get closer to Election Day. Honesty and integrity is the #1 topic to me. If you can't trust what a politician says, then there is no reason to look at their policies to begin with.
Presidential Candidate Scorecard
As I was working through the issues, I began to discover that not all issues are created equal and some are definitely more important to me. Ok, so for the folks who don't know me, I am a math and science guy so my solution was to apply a little math to the problem. For those of you who hate math, please bear with me.. I promise it is easy to understand.
I rated each issue from 1 to 3, 3 being the most important issue. For each issue, the candidate who gets my vote gets a "1". I then used the importance as a multiplier to come up with a score for each candidate. (Winner * Importance = Weighted Score) Granted, we still have awhile to go before Election Day, but below are the current results:
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