I am voting for John McCain…No, really I am VOTING FOR JOHN McCAIN.

It wasn’t as tough of a decision as I’d thought it might be. I am voting for John McCain for President this November, and you should, too.

Well, after months of bashing the esteemed Senator from Arizona during the primary season, and being one who thought of staying home this November, I have come around and I am proudly supporting Sen. John McCain for President.

I know what some of you guys are thinking, “He stuck us with Campaign Finance Reform”, and he is responsible for the gang of 13 that sided with the Democrats in blocking President Bush’s judicial nominees. He also is the only Republican who got caught up in the “Keating Five” debacle of the 80s.

I believe in redemption and forgiveness, so I am forgiving Senator McCain for his transgressions. He’s sticking his finger in the eye of conservatives, for all his faults (and we all have faults). He does have several redeeming qualities.

He is a fighter, and he never surrenders. The first proof is his eight years as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton while Bill Clinton was smoking pot and dodging the draft in England. Also, while Sen. John Kerry was lying to Congress about US servicemen in Vietnam, Sen. McCain was sacrificing for his country. This is almost reason enough to let him be President. But he is a fighter. Last November, yours truly had even written off John McCain. I was taking bets on whether or not he would drop out before Thanksgiving or before Christmas, and he did neither. Again, Sen. McCain stuck it out when his campaign was falling apart – he braved the cold of New Hampshire and stuck to it. As a result, to my chagrin, he won the New Hampshire primary.

Sen. McCain doesn’t know the meaning of surrender. He didn’t surrender in Vietnam and he didn’t surrender his campaign to the naysayers late last fall.

Now, ask yourself, who would you want at the helm of the Ship of State during the war on terror? Sen. Obama, who threw his pastor under the bus as soon as things started to heat up? Or Sen. Clinton, who would through her own mother to the wolves if it meant she’d get a few more votes? I think not.

Sen. McCain may not know much about economic issues; however, he does understand that you don’t raise taxes in troubled times. He understands that if you tax those who create the jobs, the jobs will dry out. That tax on corporate America will trickle down to Joe Taxpayer. Sen. McCain took Grover Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes. I think he has learned from his mistakes of not supporting President Bush’s tax cut. Sen. McCain also wants to end all ear marks for pet projects for members of Congress. I think if he accoplishes those two things, the economy will be just fine.

Sen. McCain also understands foreign policy better then any other candidate running for President. You have one candidate who is making up stories about her foreign policy experience when she was First Lady. Oh, the bullets were whizzing buy the cocktail party; or I had tea with PM, Bhutto. Sorry Sen. Clinton, that doesn’t qualify you for being a foreign affairs expert…nor does your husbands foreign affairs. Then you have Sen. Obama: if traveling to foreign countries makes you a foreign affairs expert, well, Ricky Nelson could be a foreign affairs expert. Or I could be a foreign affairs expert for that matter – in my 17 years alive, I have been to Poland, Germany, Greece, England, Ireland, Japan, China, Russia, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Canada. Sadly, that doesn’t qualify me.

Also, I believe we have seen the Obama movie before…it’s called the Carter Years. You remember how great those days were.