Barack Obama

Reading through Obama and Clinton's respective position descriptions on Wikipedia and VoteSmart, I found myself standing more and more behind Obama. His positions are clear and strongly liberal. Hillary is a moderate and has reversed her positions to make them more palatable over time. I believe she probably has genuinely changed her mind about some things, but for the most part she is a politician. I credit her with an evolving and deep understanding of the war in Iraq and with having an outline of an exit strategy that primarily employs economic means of establishing peace. She's a diplomat and I am guessing she is a very good one. Nonetheless, I hate to see her falter on whether homosexuality is immoral or if prisons are too full or not full enough.

However, reading through Barack's positions, I was disappointed to learn that he is strongly in favor of gun control, so strongly that you get the idea that he'd like to ban them altogether. In fact, he has tried to pass a bill banning the sale and possession of handguns. Not only is this in conflict with my personal beliefs and my rights, but it makes him unelectable.

He's a favorite of the Democrats right now, and in the narrow incubator of the primaries he's coming across wonderfully. But already fringed by his color and relative youth, he will have a tough job convincing Republicans over to his side. He still has a chance, however, if he is very straight-shooting, fiscally conservative, and socially permissive. He could capture both Republicans looking to return to more dignified roots after the embarrassment of G.W. as well as the entire Democratic voting base.

However, if he maintains his position on gun control, he will lose virtually every Republican voter, left-voting libertarian, plenty of moderates and a small number of Democrats. He will capture perhaps 35-40% of the vote, and 15% of those will only be voting for him out of fear of all things red.