13. Become educated on presidential candidates and their stands

John Stuart Mill was a proponent of an educational qualification for voting. While I admit that such a qualification would almost certainly be used for nefarious purposes (Jim Crow laws for example), seeing things like this give me pause:



Regardless, I felt it was my personal duty to learn about the candidates I would need to choose from on November 4th. And though I lean liberal on the majority of issues I firmly believe in keeping an open mind and not clinging to misguided beliefs in the face of insurmountable evidence to the contrary. So, in order to come to a decision about who to vote for I did the following things:

1.)Subscribed to the New Yorker Campaign Trail Podcast. Obviously this was a very liberal POV coming from the New Yorker whose editors endorsed Obama.

2.)Read frequent "World Watch" columns by Orson Scott Card at The Ornery American. An example can be found here. OSC is a pretty socially conservative dude and as a person who is one of my favorite authors, was someone I felt could provide me with a conservative viewpoint that might be more palatable to me. Unfortunately it wasn't. OSC leans towards paranoia in his columns and ventures into the realm of hypocrisy on many occasions.

3.)Watched the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Highlights included Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer's speech,



Ted Kennedy's appearance, Mick Huckabee's comedy act, and Sarah Palin's speech which led to this great image:



4.)I read Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father and John McCain's Faith of My Fathers.

5.)I took a ride on the Straight Talk Express,

when McCain came to town.



I even shook his hand



6.)I went and saw Barack Obama when he came to town.



I shook his hand as well



7.)I watched all 3 Presidential debates and the VP debate

8.)I visited the best polling site on the web fivethirtyeight.com daily

9.)And I enjoyed all the laughs, from The Daily Show



to Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, to Obama Girl.



So as I make my way to the polls tomorrow, I will feel very confident as I vote to elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. Though I believe that John McCain is a good man and a true American hero, I have come to believe that he and I differ on many significant issues and picking someone like Sarah Palin as his VP has shown me that he wants to get elected more than he cares about the future of this country. I believe that Barack Obama will be the best person to move us forward from the past eight years and I look forward to affordable health care for my family (which I don't have now), a Supreme Court that isn't controlled by conservatives, and having someone who I believe has a keen understanding of the domestic and foreign policy issues that face America in the White House.

I hope you will vote for Barack Obama tomorrow. However, more than that, I hope that you came to that conclusion by educating yourself. If you plan on voting becoming educated is your duty and if you haven't I hope that you will sit this one out.