Why McCain?

With the American Presidential election less than a month away, I've noticed again, as in elections past, that there's a serious dearth of real discussion on the issues and the candidates' positions. Instead, there's scandal and innuendo and 30-second ads and slogans.

What I'd like to propose is that those of you who plan on voting for John McCain articulate your reasons for doing so and engage in a serious, issues-oriented dialog -- and I'm creating another thread for those who support Barack Obama (Ron Paul, Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinnie supporters are welcome to create their own threads).

I'd like to ask that the topic of the thread be real, substantive policies the candidate has endorsed or said he'll implement and a discussion of why those policies would be good choices for America (and reasoned debate by those who disagree) -- not generic slogans like "Change We Can Believe In" or "Country First". If the campaign slogan is your best reason for picking a President, I'd suggest that you have no business voting in the first place.

I'll start:

One of the reasons I support John McCain is because of his education plan. He supports parents being able to make the best choice for their children's education, rather than forcing them to remain in failing public schools. Having the money follow the child to private schools does not benefit the rich over the poor -- in fact, it's exactly the opposite. The rich will always be able to send their children to private schools -- the few thousand dollars a voucher or similar program provides is meaningless to the truly rich. To the middle-class family trying to make the decision, it's the difference between being able to or not. To the poor family, those vouchers would make it feasible for quality private schools to open in poor neighborhoods, providing education choices not currently available.

Education is one of the most serious issues facing America today and is at the root of many of our other problems. Throwing more money into a failing, bloated bureaucracy controlled by education unions that want no accountability and no standards isn't the answer. Competition and accountability is the answer.

Last year, my son's teacher taught the class that cents were written with a decimal point and cent sign -- meaning that 32 cents was written: 0.32c not $0.32 or 32c

When I pointed out to her that 0.32c means 32/100 of a cent, she had to "check with her team" before acknowledging that the materials were wrong.

Now this fundamental math error may not seem like a big deal, but there have been spacecraft that were destroyed due to errors in decimal points and I'd like to think that America's children will grow up able to work somewhere that doesn't follow Verizon-math, so maybe some accountability would be helpful?