Here is why I will vote for John McCain - by Curt Schilling

I will vote for John McCain on Tuesday. Stop reading if you don’t care, and no, I don’t want you to vote for him because I am. Vote for the person you believe will best serve us, the American people on Tuesday.
95% of Politicians lives are spent ‘behind closed doors’. We can’t see or hear the things they do and say. We rely on these men and woman to make the right decisions, we rely on them to serve in our best interests at home and abroad.
What do I know about Barack Obama?
Listen I don’t for a second think the links to Bill Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground and known domestic terrorist, who bombed among other things a police station, the Pentagon and other buildings, I don’t think that makes Barack Obama a terrorist, contrary to what some might have you believe.
I don’t think that the links to Rashid Khalidi make him a supporter of the PLO.
I don’t think that his associations and work with ACORN means he was out soliciting and registering ‘fake’ voters.
I don’t think that his associations and ’spiritual counseling’ from Jeremiah Wright means he hates our country or wishes the country ill will.
Maybe he does, I don’t know, but I don’t believe he does.
I am very concerned about the fact that in the past 7 days the ‘floor’ of his tax plan on Americans has been given as 4 very distinctly different numbers that, depending on which one we are to believe, would affect a much larger % of Americans than we’ve been led to believe.
What I do know about Senator Obama is, I don’t really know what he is going to do other than raise taxes and put in mechanisms to parcel out that money under a ‘plan’, supposedly, we know nothing about.
But none of the points above make me think he’s a ‘bad guy’ or ‘mean person’, however they give me absolute right and I think it would be borderline negligent to NOT question his judgment in a very serious way. And isn’t that important of a President? Aren’t we supposed to vote for someone who, even if they don’t have every single interest of ours as their priority, we trust to have good judgment? Do any of those examples make me think that is the case?
(Anyone wishing to use this as a reason for me to vote against him can zip it, I don’t have a job, I am likely retired, and the tax threshold means squat to me. I am now a small business owner in a start up and there is nothing he’s proposed that is going to help me hire new employees or maintain the best health care coverage in the industry my company is in. I’m going to have to do that despite him if he’s elected)
I am not voting for John McCain for any of the reasons above in and of itself. In fact pretty much every reason I can think of to vote for Senator McCain has to do with the man himself.
I am put off by the fact that Senator Obama has made this campaign about him, and his desire to be the President of the United States, while Senator McCain has made it clear that serving as President would be an honor and privilege following a life spent doing that very thing.
But this is the reason it has all become easier for me. Neither of these men stand on platforms I am in complete agreement with. If you say otherwise, you’re lying. For one reason we don’t know what their platforms are in total, but we have an idea. Obviously my beliefs are more in line with Senator McCain but it’s not some landslide thing where I can say “Wow! That’s stupid! No way I’d vote for that guy”. No. So if I don’t agree with both of them in total, I need to go to the next check mark. Which of these men can I trust to do the “Right Thing” (Sorry Spike!).
In a scenario far beyond anything anyone reading this can imagine, on the most important day of his life, in the most life threatening peril any of us could think to imagine, no cameras, no votes to win, no political favors to gain, this man, John McCain made a decision I don’t think many of us could, or would have made.
Faced with likely death if he stayed, versus living and being nursed back to health AT HOME, IN THE U.S., John McCain stood by the code of Honor, Ethics, Morals, and Integrity we only WISH men running this country had. Broken arms, leg, shoulder, ribs, dysentery like you can’t imagine, after years of torture and beatings, solitary confinement, all of that, he choose to stay in prison, with his brothers in arms, rather than being set free because he was the son of one of the most powerful and influential men in the United States Armed Forces.
He was willing to give his life for something he believed in. Something that to many was nothing more than words on paper, but to men like Senator McCain and all those serving with him, beside him, these were much more, they were something you built a nation out of. A nation of great human beings. He did this for that reason, and that reason alone.
Having every reason in the world to go home to his wife and young child, and health, he didn’t! Why? Please answer that question in your own mind. Answer that and then tell me with a straight face this man is someone you don’t trust with our best interest? Really?
The other big piece to this is that if you have heard him he’s as honest as the day is long. For better or worse this man will be the first to admit he’s made mistakes, he’s screwed up. Show me any other person on the ticket that has been so ‘real’, his warts are out there for all to see and he makes NO EXCUSES, NONE, for his short comings. I can live with someone that’s made mistakes as long as I know those mistakes were made in our best interests, made with the notion of serving the greater good. I worry more about people failing to recognize or admit or own up to screwing up.
The one prime example of this, and you only need to pick up the paper to see it, is the war in the Middle East. 1 year ago it was front page news, every single day. Why not now? Well in addition to the Global Economy being in the tank, the bigger reason is because the ‘Surge’ that was thought to be “Political Suicide” for any politician endorsing it, is working. No one needs to be reminded who voted on which side back then, but it’s horribly convenient that it’s dismissed off hand today. Once again, with everything to lose, Senator McCain said “I’d rather lose this election than lose this war” . Against literally all odds and I would guess advice, he did what he knew to be the right thing FOR THE COUNTRY.
Senator Biden? Where was he? He’s the foreign Policy Expert guy right? The guy with a lifetime of experience and know how? Well he was here and he was wrong. Wrong then, wrong now.
Senator Obama? He was here stating emphatically“nobody wants to get U.S. troops out of Iraq more than he does, but doing so will require voters to pressure Senate Republicans, including New Hampshire Senators Judd Gregg and John Sununu, to break with President Bush”. That was 16 months ago!!. In the past 16 months can ANYONE on the planet not admit the tide has turned, things have changed on an epic scale? Senator Obama still holds to the line saying “It has not worked”.
Can anyone fathom what would have happened if we’d actually followed that course of action? Can you honestly say if he’d has his way, and we’d pulled out, things would be better in this world? How can you? He was wrong, all of them were.
That’s not to say it’s over, it’s not and won’t be in the near future, any rational person knows that and should expect it to be more time and effort and unfortunately lives and least of all money, to get what needs to be done, done. Don’t we owe it to the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces, NATO forces of the coalition and the men, women and children of Iraq to see it through? That’s not to say it’s been easy or in any way diminish the staggering cost in lives, those things in and of themselves are horrible. But we have a country of men and women willing and able to take on that responsibility and that is a source of pride we should all take comfort in. Stop with the why’s and how’s of it all beginning. None of us can or will deny we were not given the right or proper information at the outset and I won’t disagree for a second that the people responsible will have to bear witness to their involvement and accountability. But memory is a funny thing, because I have trouble finding anyone that was out in the street screaming and hollering at President Bush in the months following 9/11. We were proud as hell to be acting how we acted, and doing what we were doing. The minute the ‘cost’ came into view people started scrambling for life boats and politicians all over this country showed you what they truly believed about us, and their agendas, in the months and years that have followed.
In the last debate Senator McCain emphatically asked us only ONE THING, one, ‘Check the record’ on both he and Senator Obama. In the white noise that has become this political campaign lots of people, me included at times, have lost focus on the people, the men, the women, and who and what they are. Isn’t that what matters?
I am voting for Senator McCain because when the lights are off, and no ones watching, I know for a fact this man is going to ALWAYS vote for and push for and make happen, the thing that is in our best interest; and by “our” I don’t mean my taxes, your salary, his 401K, her Medical, I mean he’ll always take the route that is best for US, as a whole, the country, and that’s what we need in my opinion. We must have someone who understands this job is bigger than he is. Than any one or two people are, and that this job unlike any time in our life, is going to command someone with the life long experience of instituting change, redirecting failed efforts, fighting the establishment and having to ‘go against the grain’ but most of all someone who knows and understands service to country is the most important responsibility we have. Someone who’s done it, someone who’s passed tests few have ever been asked to take, and far fewer could ever pass.
John McCain has spent his life passing tests in service of our country and at no time in my life, or my children, is this country more in need of someone new to take charge and change the very fabric of who we are, and what we are doing.


Thanks to http://38pitches.com/2008/11/02/305/