Fancy Store-Bought Dirt

"The Libertarian Case for Palin"

At least that's what this article titles itself.

Nowhere is the Federal Marriage Amendment mentioned: Although the GOP platform supports it, McCain is well-known for opposing it. Assuming Palin also opposes it for all the obvious defer-to-the-states reasons, this would be a non-issue. (Though if she did support the FMA, then I couldn't blame anyone for casting a single-issue vote for Obama.)

One thing I've learned about choosing battles, that I wish I understood better ten years ago, is to understand what a given candidate plausibly can('t) accomplish. On abortion in particular, supposedly the issue with presidential candidates is what kind of Supreme Court judges* they'd appoint -- but is there some sort of Super Duper Pro-Lifer judge who'd invoke a special shortcut key to be able to cast three votes on one case? If not, then there's not any practical difference whether the VP opposes all abortions or just most of them.

*- And even at that, suppose the precedent set by Roe v. Wade were overturned (remember that there's a strong constitutional law case against it that has nothing to do with the constitutional thinker's own opinion of abortions). In the social climate of 2008 how many states do you think would sustain an abortion ban?

Getting out of the social-issue thicket, a great way for McCain to distinguish himself from Obama would be opposing the abuse of state power. His national service program in particular would require a whole lot of new bureaucratic positions to decide what does(n't) qualify as a valid community service, and to control the fate of tens of billions of dollars (not to mention tens of millions of Americans).