Senator McCain and Governor Palin

Senator McCain has selected, as his Vice Presidential running mate, a socially intolerant and religiously extreme Governor who doesn't seem to understand that the First Amendment requires that Church and State be separate. While her selection has energized the conservative (perhaps better described as extreme right wing) base of the Republican party, it is likely to turn off many of the Independents and old style Republicans that Senator McCain also needs to win.

I am one.

I had hoped, this year, that I would be able to vote FOR a candidate and believed that Senator McCain would be that candidate. I regret to say that his selection of Governor Palin, around whom there is also the smell of trimming - on earmarks among other things, hypocrisy, and abuse of power, has removed me from the ranks of enthusiastic supporters of Senator McCain.

I still believe that Senator Obama is unqualified and that his likely policies - as much as we have seen them - will harm our country. While I almost certainly will vote against him, staying home on Election Day is no longer totally out of the question.