FYI

By way of confession, I find it easier to point out negatives.
It's easier, safer, and is more agreeable with my cynical nature.
This is why you will find more criticisms than endorsements in my opinions.
Endorsing anyone puts you out on a limb. You are then placed in a defensive position. The first time your guy does something stupid, people expect you to defend him.
It is not an exciting way to live, but you wind up eating less crow.
I would like to turn over a new leaf, and enthusiastically endorse a candidate for president. (I know how eagerly you await this endorsement.) but, I can't.
I assume that Mike Huckabee is floundering in the wake of McCain and Romney, and will most likely not regain footing.
So we have a two-man race.
I must admit that I struggle with personal preferences. I never cared much for McCain until Limbaugh and Hannity loaded up on him.

Rush Limbaugh said there was no difference between McCain and Clinton. And Sean Hannity in his usual intellectually dishonest fashion likes to remind people that McCain flip-flopped on such important social issues as tax cuts, immigration, and McCain-Feingold finance reform.

[In keeping with my nature, I would like to point out that the Limbaugh statement cannot even be called an exaggerration. It is a lie. And Hannity, well. . .Recently, a woman caller asked Hannity if John McCain had flip-flopped on any social issues in the past five to ten years. What issues, specifically, Hannity wanted to know. Abortion, gay marriage, the war, she responded. Well yes, Hannity deftly redirected, he has flip-flopped on several of those issues. He has flip-flopped on tax cuts, on immigration, and campaign finance reform. Are you confused, too? I think that was the point.]

I became so disgusted with their hyperbole that I unwisely began studying McCain more closely to dredge up something good.

In the pure spirit of reactionism, I reasoned that such obfuscation on the part of talk radio must conversely recommend the man.
But however unjustly they have judged him, he leaves much to be desired.
He has a consistent pro-life voting record, but is ambivalent on the repeal or overturning of Roe v. Wade. He has stated that he wishes there were "less intensity" on the issue of abortion.
He has staked out a disturbingly unclear position on embryonic stem-cell research.
He is opposed to a federal marriage ammendment, citing state's rights. (Though I would remind you that the early-on favorite Fred Thompson held the same position.)
He has yet to clear up what he was about in 2000 with his evangelical-bashing rampage.
I commend him for supporting the permanent establishment of the Bush tax cuts, but I would commend him even more had he the foresight to support them in the first place.
Robert Novak insists that McCain did, in fact, state that Samuel Alito was "too conservative."
And last and least, John McCain is a global warming disciple.

Now, the other one.
Was it not as recently as 2004 when conservative punditry justly deconstructed John Kerry for being a flip-flopper? Well, we appear to have the Republican equivalent in Mitt Romney.
I guess we all know that Romney was pro-life, then "effectively pro-choice" when running for governor of Massachusetts, then at some point during his governorship underwent a change of heart that he neglected to tell anyone about, and returned to his pro-life position.
In the interest of being unlike Hannity and Limbaugh, I researched this as carefully as I could.
Romney says he was "personally pro-life" originally, but when it came time to run for office felt that the issue of government intrusion into private life trumped his private pro-life beliefs. During his tenure in office, he became convinced otherwise, and is now, publicly and privately, pro-life, although he still retains an interest in letting states make the decision.
Even if you ignore the suspicious timing, there is still an enormous ideological problem with choosing civil liberties and now, state's rights, over the right of babies to live.
How pro-life are you when you feel that the issue is a personal or state decision?
On the issue of gun-control, Mitt Romney has a powerful lot of explaining to do.
While governor, he stated his support of the state's strict gun laws and vowed to let no one chip away at them. He also supported the Clinton assault weapons-ban.

I will vote for either one of these against Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but I will find myself pining for the days of W, or even Reagan.
Input, anyone?