Kerry Howley says it much better than I can

[elfs]

Quoted in full. Kerry doesn't have ads, so I don't feel guilty, but you can drop him a line if you feel the need:

There is a massive gap between Obama’s actual rhetoric and the conservative portrayal of him as some sort of naive, starry-eyed internationalist. There is no globalist in this election, naive or otherwise. There is the candidate who insists that foreigners are bloodthirsty killers, and the one who keeps reminding you that foreigners will shutter your factories, poison your children, and destroy your domestic motorcycle industry. Yes, yes, I realize that we aren’t supposed to listen when the Obama campaign depicts economic engagement as un-American. That’s just smoke and mirrors for some nice folks in Michigan; the rest of us are supposed to shove our fingers in our ears, dream of container ships, and wait for Austan Goolsbee to fix the whole thing later. The problem with this approach is that every time Barack Obama says something intelligent about trade, some guy in Ohio plugs his own ears and waits for Obama to stop pandering to globe-trotting pansies too weak to build their own vehicles or churn their own butter. The only thing I know about Obama is that he is less scary than the other guy.

McCain’s bloodlusty glory-and-honor-at-any-cost orientation terrifies me. On the other hand, I’m reasonably hopeful that Obama will emerge a calculating and not at all honorable politician, thus talking the protectionist talk and doing nothing to advance an economics of resentment. I have a largely unjustified faith in Obama’s faithlessness, which is why I am voting for him.

Comments

[heofmanynames.livejournal.com]

Here's a link to a great piece in D magazine this month - I think you'll like it.
The author BTW is not only the publisher of the magazine, but the (former?) publisher of the National Review (back in Buckley's day)....

A Conservative for Obama (http://www.dmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?nm=Core+Pages&type=gen&mod=Core+Pages&tier=3&gid=B33A5C6E2CF04C9596A3EF81822D9F8E)

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Didn't I link to that one already? Ah, yes I did. (http://elfs.livejournal.com/924156.html) Obamacons, combine and form the Obaminator!

[heofmanynames.livejournal.com]

Apologies, good sir - must have missed your link & stumbled into it by another route.
Still: excellent piece!

What I sent Sen McCain

[norincraft.livejournal.com]

Sen McCain,

I doubt this will reach you, but I hope it does.

I believe it's the duty of the electorate to to make informed decisions, so I watch both parties national conventions and every presidential and vice presidential political debates each election cycle. I saw how you were maligned by false accusations in 2000 and I felt what was done to you was unjust. All the more since it worked only to diminish your service to the United States these last 30 (at the time) or so years.

So I think it's especially important to let you know why I won't be voting for you.

It has nothing to do with the disastrous current administration, nothing to do with maintaining balance in supreme court; it's not Iraq and not even the economy. We'll get though all that, eventually.

My decision has everything to do with how negative campaigning has whipped up party supporters, to where they have made what essentially constitutes a death threat and/or racist remarks. Frankly, I don't see how you can preach country first and allow that happen to happen. A president doesn't has a moral obligation to be our pastor-in-chief but he should be able to use the position to uphold our rights. I'm disturbed about what I seen (or haven't) from your campaign.

This is just a recent example: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=5987004&page=1

I wish you well. But more than that, I wish my country well.

Re: What I sent Sen McCain

[tagryn]

Both campaigns have dirty hands as far as how negative the campaign has gone; despite their early promises (and probably personal desire) to stay above board, neither has. As expected, its gotten worse as Election Day nears and emotions are spiking. The "treason" and "terrorist" shouts are unfortunate, but then, so were the Obama supporters who disrupted McCain's speech at the GOP convention. There's idiots and extremists in every movement, but we should recognize them as such, not as accurate representations of the supporters in toto.

It also isn't clear from the article whether the shouts were directed towards Ayers, which would make a lot more sense. Ayers is an unapologetic terrorist, after all, and we saw in an earlier thread that there's more than a couple people out there who'd be willing to throw the switch on him if given the opportunity.