Decesions Decesions

Who to vote for tomorrow is the decision in front of many of us. And for the Christ follower, I don't think it's an easy one. Two candidates and two parties each seek my vote, each representing Christ in some ways, and assailing him and his creation in others. So, who to vote for?

To help me make my decision, I'm looking at what some Christian organizations have to say, specifically the Sojourners - Voting Guide (Left), Focus on the Family - Citizen Link - (Right) and Christianity Today - How to Pick a President Article (centrist) as well as the candidates themselves.

Having looked over the material of these organizations, as well as the candidates, I think what I'm going to do is simply list the candidates and make a list of the top pros and cons for each one, from my perspective.

John McCain pro

• Pro-Life on the rights of the unborn child.

• Conservative judiciary philosophy. I believe in writing laws written by the people's representatives, and/or amending the constitution, not legislating from the bench. (Though both the "Right" and the "Left" are guilty of this from time to time.)
  

• Will divide power between Democrats in Congress and a Republican in the White House, which among other things should limit spending.
  

• Centrist (Examples: emigration, torture)

• Will limit spending. (Hopefully. W certainly hasn't, but that is primarily because with a Republican congress for much of the time, there were no checks and balances.)
  

Barack Obama pro

• Pro-Life on capital punishment, war and genocide.

• Comprehensive health care plan addresses Biblical issues of justice and may put the nation on a better economic footing. People absolutely should not die simply because they can not afford their medicine or a procedure. Additionally this will set the nation on a better footing economically, because it will allow American multinational cooperations as well as small businesses to compete on an even playing field with their international competitors.

• Has an appropriate view of Americas place in the world, and understands that God loves the whole world.
  

• Will limit defense spending.
• This may put us on a better footing economically, depending on if the savings get spent or not.
• The chief threats to our "way of life" as well as our ability to help the less fortunate is economic, as we have seen in the last few months. Yes we need to defend ourseleves and fight terrorism. However we do not need the ginormous profit driven military industrial complex that the Bush administration has enriched at the expense of economic security and the poor and needy.
  

• Understands the Biblical mandate to care for creation.
  
  

John McCain con

• Many economic policies cater to the wealthy at the expense of the poor. This is a "values" issue.

• Choice of campaign style does more to tear down, and caters to an "us vs them" mentality, which is inappropriate.

• Choice of Sarah Palin was a poor choice because there are others who are much more qualified. Even from a conservative perspective, there are much smarter people out there, who are just as conservative. This choice placed his campaign to become president ahead of the good of the country, and that is a moral problem.

Barack Obama con

• Association with some aspects of the far Left.
• Homosexual agenda
• Secular Anti-Faith agenda
• Overly socialistic agenda, that while well intentioned will not work economically. (We must pay for whatever "good" things we want to do, and stop putting it on the backs of future generations.)
  

• In conjunction with a Democratic congress will provide no checks to spending in general or a far left agenda.

For both candidates I could list things already addressed as pro's for one candidate, as con's for the other since they don't address them, but that would just be redundant.

So who to pick? - Fortunately I still have over 24 hours to decide.

: )

Let me just say this in closing. The country will be just fine on November 5th, and Lord willing will be a better place to live four years latter, no matter who gets elected.

I hear a number of people say they don't like either candidate. I like them both. Barack's choice to work with people in the inner city, and John's 5 years in a prison camp, gives me confidence that both of these men "get it", an while you are I may not agree with every policy position they hold, I think they are both fundamentally seeking the good of the nation.