John McCain is a good man. I don’t like his political positions. Barack Obama is also a good man. He’s one of the most promising young leaders to come along in years. His positions I do like.

People should be ashamed of some of the things they’ve said about Barack and Michelle Obama here. They’re vilifying a husband and wife who love each other and are totally devoted to their two young daughters. They’re vilifying a man who means well for his country, and who has been consistently respectful of his opponents. They’re also vilifying everyone who doesn’t happen to share their opinions.

That makes it all very personal. It’s sure not the way you win anyone over to your side of an argument. It’s the way you harden divisions, and attract hateful people.

NOBAMA!

GO Hillary!

GO PUMAs

ABC News’ Jennifer Parker Reports: Less than 20 people, mostly women, holding “Free Hillary” and “NObama” signs, protested outside the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC Thursday night where Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., is expected to appear at a fundraising event for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

They are part of a coalition of groups still angry that Clinton lost the primary.

“We don’t want Barack Obama to be president,” said Will Bower, columnist for the Huffington Post website, and co-founder of the “Party Unity My Ass,” and “Just Say NO DEAL” groups.

The newly-formed groups are urging Clinton not to deal with Obama and fight for the nomination at the Democratic Party convention in August.

“The DNC has pre-wired this election to put in an insider candidate and we need to stop it,” Bower said, citing the Democratic National Party delegate system.

“He needs to worry about the women,” argued Patricia Lengermann of Maryland, a member of the “Just Say NO DEAL” coalition. “He never got a majority and she has 18 million voters,” she said, “he should make a gesture to her to pay off her debt — half of it she spent herself,” she said.

OBAMA=WINNER

On the one side you’ve got mainstream republican voters. These are people who place great emphasis on traditional American values and virtues. They admire hard work, self-reliance, honesty, financial responsibility, personal integrity. They tend to be religious and place much emphasis on patriotism. All of those things are wrapped together under the banner of Conservativism–with the flag of the nation being the banner, and with Conservativism actually being about a desire to conserve what is most valued.

On the other side you’ve got the republican politicians and the republicanism they actually practice. They make their pitches to republican voters by talking the talk, but behind the scenes they serve wealth and power, and their practices often produce results that fly in the face of the actual values of true conservativism. Thus we’ve witnessed America attack and occupy a nation that hadn’t attacked us and wasn’t capable of doing so, with the path to the war paved with a deliberate campaign of lies and deceptions on the part of the president and his administration; we’ve seen untold billions of dollars redistributed to the wealthiest people in the nation through a grossly inequitable tax-cut scheme, while our government has paid for that same war by borrowing indescriminantly from foreign sources, doubling the national debt to over $9 1/2 trillion in a mere 7 1/2 years; we’ve seen regulatory agencies systematically disempowered, to the point where we’re now reliant on the very nations who send us tainted foods, bogus medication, and dangerous products to inspect them for quality and safety; we’ve seen defense contractors overcharging the taxpayers for supplies for our troops on a monumental scale. Billions of U.S. dollars in Iraq have simply vanished and can’t be accounted for. At home we’ve seen the Katrina debacle, that revealed much about Homeland Security and FEMA. (If these guys can respond to a natural disaster with 5 days advance warning, how would they perform with an unexpected terrorist attack?) Remember the parking lots filled with unused, falling-apart FEMA mobile homes? The ones that were used, that turned out to be toxic environments? The estimated billion dollars directly lost to disaster relief fraud? What about border security? How many years have passed since 9/11? After all that time, after all the republicans have made of terrorism, “border security” remains a joke. One thing they have accomplished is to make it a lot harder for American citizens to reenter their own country. Soon I’ll need an American passport to get back home from a day trip to Canada. That certainly makes me feel safer.

All of these things should be direct affronts to true conservative sensibilites. You’d think that good, honest republican citizens would realize that they’ve been had. No doubt some do. That’s probably what accounts for George W. Bush’s current 28% approval rating. But it’s a serious mistake to blame all of this on George W. Bush. George is just the current figurehead. What you’re actually seeing is the enormous difference between what republican politicians say and do. Conservative politicians may talk the conservative talk, but they walk the republican walk.

Do McCain’s policies not seem remarkably like the policies of George W. Bush? There is that 95% allignment of McCain’s voting record with Bush policy. You might want to think of John McCain as a moderate conservative. That’s certainly the sales pitch. But don’t miss the obvious truth that he’s part of the same republican machinery that put us where we are today.