Candidate Bashing

It's struck me recently that I've done very little in the way of ranting on the race for the American presidency. Probably because I haven't yet taken a side...both McCain and Obama have the tendency to disgust me a bit on occasion. McCain does this even more than Obama, simply because despite the fact that he is running as the Republican candidate, he seems to me to be more liberal that anything. (Where are my conservatives? I WANT MY CONSERVATIVES).

I also find the ad campaigns being waged by both sides a bit disgusting. A pro-Obama flyer was recently dropped of at our door. The reasons that it listed as reasons that I should vote for Obama included:

*The fact that he was raised by a single parent and worked his way through college. (So what? What are his policies? How would that make him a better president?)
*His personal values include self-reliance, accountability and treating others the way you want to be treated. (Again, why do I care? Unless you pull that 'self-reliance' thing around in some way to make it look like he's going to fix the welfare system, I don't give a damn about his personality, I want to know about his POLICIES.)

I've also seen a lot of McCain supporters talking about McCain's military experience, mostly the fact that he was a POW. Again, that does not mean he's going to make a better president than Mr.Changehopechangeandhopeandchange. Even more trivial still, they also harp ofnthe fact that Obama smoked pot when he was younger. That's not a good thing, of course, but, yet again, I. Do. Not. Care. In yet another example of how it seems this election will be decided by completely irrelevant non-information, I saw an entire news article today devoted to the fact that McCain has recently had a spot removed from his face. Sigh.

The fact that I want small government and closed borders means I'm pretty much guaranteed to be unhappy with the outcome of this election,(pandering liberal #1 or pandering liberal #2?) but the fact remains that if we want a good president, we need to vote for him/her for reasons other than their race/gender/amount of babies kissed/whether or not they have a happy marriage/whether or not they have freaking spots on their faces.