While driving the van in this morning, I was thinking about the DNC last night… and wanted to jot down a few of those thoughts over lunch. First and foremost, I believe that you should not vote against a candidate, you should vote for a candidate. By that, I mean you should determine who you want based on what they want to do and what they want to achieve, not what they are against. Unfortunately, much of the campaign this year has been why the other side is bad, with few specifics about what will be done. The second belief I have is that you will never agree 100% with a party, but you should determine which of your positions are important to you, and go with the candidate that goes with the majority of those positions. I will never have a beef with anyone who researches their candidates and parties and goes with their beliefs — it is voting without thinking that bothers me (and this is why I have friends across the political spectrum — I respect their right to hold their beliefs, and hope they respect me in return).
I mention this all because one thing both the RNC and DNC have brought us are their platforms. Although there have been last minute meaningless changes (and yes, I consider both the Jerusalem and God issues of the DNC to be meaningless–the first because neither party has ever acted upon the Jerusalem planks in their platforms, and the second because God belongs in a platform as much as it belongs in the Constitution (which it isn’t)). I’ve seen two nice summaries of the differences: the NY Times has one good summary; Electoral-vote.com has the other. The platforms differ in more than just typography: there are fundamental differences of philosophy between the two parties that are as different as Keynes and Hayak.
I encourage you to read both platforms [Republican, Democratic] (or their summaries) and decide for yourself the party you align closest with. For me, that’s the positions of President Obama and the Democratic party, but YMMV. I read what the Republicans want to do — both in social issues and to some extent even in financial issues, and I just cannot support it. But that’s me. I encourage you to be an informed voter, and understand what your candidate wants to do, not just what he is against.
