As I write this, it’s just a few days until the 2008 election begins. Seven candidates remain: Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Rudy Giuliani (minus Tom Tancredo, who has endorsed Mitt Romney, and Sam Brownback, who has endorsed John McCain). Things have gotten very, very interesting here in the final stretch! A surging Mike Huckabee came up from almost no where to even out the race, and he currently holds leads in three of the first four primaries: Iowa, Florida and South Carolina. In the second state to vote, New Hampshire, Mitt Romney holds onto a lead over John McCain, who is about 8 points behind. McCain is moving upward, though, and many theorize that if Huckabee can upset Romney in Iowa, McCain could beat go on to beat him (Romney) in New Hampshire.

I hadn’t made up my mind in any prior posts about who I support (being too young to vote) in this race, but I now back John McCain. McCain holds stands that are similar to mine on social issues, and I agree with him on economic issues as well. Most importantly, however, McCain is the only person in the race on both sides whom I trust totally, completely, and unhesitatingly to win the war in Iraq, as well as the broader War on Terror. McCain brings experience almost entirely untainted by the give-and-take of the Senate, and his reputation as a maverick who believes what he believes no matter what is well earned: he has come out against government subsidies for ethanol, something that seriously hurt him in Iowa, but he doesn’t mind the damage.

I don’t agree with John McCain on everything, by any means. I disagree with his stance on waterboarding, his questionable involvement in the old immigration bill, and his ideas on global warming worry me a bit. I view these things as largely minor, however, and are far outweighed by his great plusses. John McCain is my choice for the White House.

With that said, there are other interesting issues regarding the election I’d like to talk about. I can’t get into everything here, but Romney’s and Huckabee’s uses of and spats regarding religion do garner attention, as does the ever-fascinating and entertaining Ron Paul. Finally, the decline of Romney and Giuliani, too, I see as important.

The Ron Paul Show

Ron Paul likes to think of himself as the Constitution’s candidate. He’s constitutional, alright! What bothers me is what else he is. For instance, he recently came out as saying that the Civil War was a bad mistake… on the North’s part (or something to that effect). He went on to say how the government should have done some kind of peaceful method to end it, how the government could have just bought all the slaves, etc.

Obvious idiocy of such a stand aside, its hypocrisy catches me even more. There were almost four million slaves in the United States in 1860. Now, Ron Paul touts his own fiscal conservatism and monetary responsibility a lot. I’m not sure how much a slave was worth back in those days, but their total economic value greatly increased via their posterity’s continued working the fields, and they weren’t for sale. Even if they were, I’d like to know how Ron Paul would’ve paid for it, and how he would’ve convinced Southern congressmen to vote for it, were he in Abe’s shoes.

This issue may seem rather irrelevant, but it really isn’t. It just showcases Ron Paul’s delusional ideas perfectly. This may sound harsh, but I think he’s a man so obsessed with ideals that he seems to lack a firm grounding in reality. It shows again in his stance against any U.S. military involvement anywhere, citing that it caused 9/11. This is false, when taken by itself, but is true when put into the larger context. The larger context is that Osama Bin Laden had a multitude of reasons to attack this country: economic, military, social, political, and religious. The economic component is globalism, the free market, and the extraordinary wealth it has brought the West. The military component is the United States bases placed in (volunteering) Middle Eastern nations. The social factor is the natural, non-forceful exportation of American culture around the world. The political factor is largely seen in the separation of church and state as well as democracy in general, and how governments around the world are coming to see the genius of both. The religious ties into the political and social: Islamic fundamentalists like Bin Laden tend to think that a woman showing her head is a terrible, terrible sin, and it is the government’s job to ruthlessly enforce their twisted version of propriety. So it’s rather obvious they’re not comfortable with Western clothing on Middle Eastern shores. They also tend to think that any governmental institution’s existence when not ruled by their Islamic law is another terrible, terrible sin. Therefore it’s no stretch to see that they’re highly opposed to any kind, no matter how minor, of a separation of church and state.

The point here is to not vote for Ron Paul. To his credit, he has his ideas and he sticks to them like a true believer, something to be admired indeed. He has a lot of the right ideas regarding his Constitutional opinions, fiscal ideas, etc. He’s a good man, I think. Yet his foreign policy opinions regarding the War on Terror require a willing suspension of disbelief, if I might borrow the words of a Clinton.

Resisting Ron Paul’s siren song that if we only will return to isolationism, free markets, and 1780 it will all be perfect won’t give you any personal benefits, but this country will be better for it if we all can.

Separation of Religion and State?

Haven’t you heard? Haven’t you heard?! It’s ludicrous, it’s awful, it’s a tragedy, it’s sickening, it’s… blasphemous!

Mike Huckabee had a cross in his Christmas political commercial. He used the word “Christ,” too. Isn’t it horrible that he’d violate our precious, all-seeing separation of church and state by mentioning the name of the man (and showing His symbol) whom some 87% of all Americans believe, according to a recent poll, is the Son of God?

Of course, I’m being sarcastic in the above couple of paragraphs. My real problem isn’t with Huckabee’s use of a cross or mention of Christ. He has a freedom of speech and was simply pointing out that’s the reason for the season. I have no real problem with it, on its face, and all I can truly judge is what I saw. I would, personally, much prefer he make an ad that has something moderately politically substantive, but his goal in the ad is to get his name recognition up and perhaps get someone to vote for him, and the truth is that personal image and personal beliefs do matter to many voters. What I do definitely have a problem with is the way Huckabee says that we sometimes, in the Christmas season, like to sit back and get away from all those stinking politicians and their darn campaigns (granted, those weren’t his words, but they’re pretty close, I think).

George Will once called Jimmy Carter “politically anti-political.” I’m not going to accuse Mike Huckabee of being politically anti-political, but the way he bashed campaigning in the ad he ran certainly was.

Huckabee’s ad, along with Mitt Romney’s interesting speech on Mormonism at Texas A&M, has brought the separation of church and state to light again, though. Romney, of course, is a Mormon, and his religion’s mere name brings division and confusion upon otherwise informed, united peoples everywhere. Some have made the cynical statement that Huckabee is working Romney’s Mormonism to win the election. Perhaps it’s true, perhaps it’s not… who can read the hearts of men?

Romney has his own problem with religion, though: while refusing to say his beliefs or be a speaker for his faith, he says that Jesus Christ is his personal Savior. Hmmmm… let me get this straight. He can’t tell us whether he believes he will get his own planet after he’s dead, but he can tell us he believes Christ is his own savior? I’m not sure I understand where the line between personal belief and church belief is drawn there.

I think it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Romney’s not really refusing to speak for his church out of any kind of ideology. He’s refusing to do it and accepting to do it at the same time by refusing to say certain tenets but saying certain others, with only one pattern: the tenets he speaks of are popular with evangelicals; the tenets he doesn’t speak of are not.

The pattern of religious beliefs being spoken of in the political spectrum should be, in my opinion, this: what is relevant to specific policies? If, for instance, a Buddhist is running for president, I want to know exactly what he, personally, believes about pacifism at a national, foreign policy level. That is a religious belief that may be extremely relevant to public policy. How much time he believes he should spend meditating, however, is not at all relevant to public policy, in my opinion, and I don’t think it should be asked. In the same vein, I don’t care if Huckabee believes the Bible is inerrant. I do care if he believes the American government should dump boatloads of money to every humanitarian cause on the planet due to a belief in Christian generosity. Inerrancy and humanitarianism may be connected in Huckabee’s faith, just as in our model Buddhist’s faith, pacifism and meditation time may be connected. Yet if we are to maintain any degree of privacy or any degree of personal beliefs that are personal, we should not relentlessly pry into every corner of a candidate’s faith. We should DEFINITELY not do it when so many other things need to be talked about. Candidates should express their public policy views, and relate them, if they please, to their religious views. They should be questioned about religious views that may directly and demonstrably effect public policy.

Of course, this is all ideals and is rather foggy. People are free to vote on whatever basis they like. I wouldn’t call it bigotry (like so many other people are doing right now) at all, but I think it is often unwise to hold a candidate’s personal, non-political religious beliefs against him in an election. I say this on the basis that there is no uniform formula for how religion affects a man. Inerrancy may affect Huckabee’s policies in some ways; it may not, but I would much prefer any voter to simply look at the policies, not what affects them. George W. Bush was a compassionate conservative with a big heart, but did that stop him from invading Iraq preemptively? Jimmy Carter could be called, in a bit a stretch, a compassionate conservative, and some would argue that was what made him avoid war or even confrontation at any cost. Ideology isn’t cut and dry, and its effects on policy aren’t, either.

This idea of ideological application applies more directly to Romney’s Mormonism in the way that it is arguable that it affects him in the way of salesmanship (some say that Mormonism has the effect on many of its believers that they care more about the packaging of the faith than the substance of the faith). My issue, however, is not with the Mormonism that MAY cause Romney’s salesmanship because it is so arguable on whether it causes it, and as I said before and will say again, “who can read the hearts of men?” My problem is with the issue of Romney’s palpable and continual habit of saying whatever needs to be said to win, whether it stems from his Mormonism or not, and that is why I will not support him. I can’t claim to know Romney’s faith or how it exactly affects him. I can claim to know Romney is a flip-flopper (more on that later).

The Bigger They Are…

Rudy Giuliani, the longtime frontrunner of the Republican Party, may be in more trouble than any others at the head of the pack. He remains in the lead in national polls, but that lead has slipped greatly, and he does not lead in any of the first five states. History shows us that losing consecutive early states can be extremely fatal to candidates; which is why Iowa is so important. Media hype, funds, and votes all become much harder to get once someone beats you in the first state or two. Giuliani, to win the nomination, cannot expect to lose Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and Michigan all in a row. It’s very, very hard to do, especially if one candidate wins two or three of those states, as Mike Huckabee is currently set to do. Giuliani, then, must make his stand in both Florida and South Carolina, as he has no chance in Iowa or New Hampshire.

Giuliani’s fall from grace is a symptom of several things. First of all, that Christian right which the media was jumping over itself in joy to pronounce dead has awakened. I think what they, and indeed myself, I admit, didn’t understand was that the Christian right, like a lot of the country, simply didn’t care to involve themselves en masse so early in the election. They’re making their weight felt now, I think, and a lot of it is coming in behind Huckabee. The Republican Party is a party in which life and gun rights are very important issues, and Giuliani is questionable on both.

Giuliani’s plummet pleases me, to be honest. I love the man’s toughness, his determination to get results, and most of his positions. But I can’t support a pro-choice candidate when there are serious pro-life candidates on the table, and I can’t support a pro-gun control candidate when there are serious anti-gun control candidates on the table. Giuliani’s an open book candidate, and a strong candidate, who does not change with the wind. He has a set of ideals, and I like most of them.

That’s why I’m more pleased by the fall (though it’s not quite as dramatic) of the other frontrunner: Mitt Romney. I’ve called Romney a flip-flopper, and I stand by it. He had been pro-choice for as long as anyone can remember up until 2005. That was the year he officially became pro-life. I’m not as disturbed by this change as some others, though it does discomfort me.

I’m more disturbed by how in 1992, when running for a Massachusetts senate seat against Ted Kennedy, he said these exact words (that Fred Thompson has joyously replayed): “I think abortion ought to be safe and legal.” That’s fine, too: a lot of Americans are pro choice. The problem is that I’ve seen him now, in two debates, tout the fact that he “came down on the side of life” in every bill that came to his desk. Well, hey, that doesn’t sound too bad.

The problem is when you put them together. Romney told everyone in the campaign he was devoutly pro-choice, then became devoutly pro-life (without any warning) in the office of the governor a few years later. That matters to me because I really wonder just how much of the nice, conservative rhetoric he’s going to abandon if he’s president. Romney says he’s for the surge and staying in Iraq now, of course, but seeing the 180 he did from campaigner to governor back then makes me say that I sincerely doubt his solidity on… well… anything. Romney, for all intents and purposes, lied in his campaign in an attempt to win in the 90’s. So why wouldn’t he do it today? I’ve got no real reason to think that he wouldn’t.

That’s why I delight in the fact that Romney is in trouble in the two states he has banked on the most: Iowa (with Mike Huckabee) and New Hampshire (with John McCain). Republicans need not only a man who says what he does and does what he says, but we need a man who isn’t John Kerry reborn with better hair and even more stiffness.

Our Democratic Friends

So what have the Democrats been up to lately? Besides scrambling for gigantic growths in government (specifically in the form of universal healthcare) and tripping over themselves to surrender to the terrorists in Iraq and show the world how weak we really can be, Democrats are squabbling amongst themselves over who can best be the change agent. Hilary says she has results and a record of working hard to bring about change. Obama says he can do it by hoping, a politics of hope, and more hope (nobody can figure out just what he means, so Obama might as well be passing out teddy bears in my opinion). Edwards says he can do it by breaking the evils of special interests and big business, and replacing them with the white knights of federal government.

I say these things harshly, but I’m serious. Democrat’s domestic views are harmful, in my opinion, but not fatal by any means (except to the millions of unborn who die due to their distaste of any restrictions on abortion). What’s dangerous is that the entire Democratic field fails to understand that losing Iraq means not only international humiliation for the United States and our military, but also means handing terrorists and any other a country an exact blueprint for how to beat us: let us win early, drive up American casualties as much as possible during the ensuing insurgency, use stealth and civilian shields to render American air, artillery and armored power useless, and, if ethnic or religious divisions exist within the population, exploit them ruthlessly through mass murder. Rinse, repeat for a few years, and you can count on Democrats and Republicans to tear each other apart, America to get all teary eyed over this “senseless violence,” and an inevitable withdrawal.

This doesn’t at all change the fact that I still believe everything I wrote in one of my previous posts, The Polarization of Politics. I would respect a Democratic president, though I would disagree with him or her strongly. But this all shows just how vital it is that we win this election to win the war, if nothing else.

Wrap-Up

With the election so near, I encourage all of you to pray about the outcome, research the candidates, and vote (encourage your friends to do the same). I remind you that while we may not have any one candidate who is perfect, in any of our opinions, on all the issues, we’ve got a solid pack, all of whom are currently dedicated to border security, less abortions, and winning the war in Iraq (except for Ron Paul).

I give my best wishes to all the candidates and to you as you try to decide whom to vote for, and God bless America.