I have been told we have a strong vote and now we have 2 choices?? Neither seems to be for us in any way. So If you would vote....since I hear many are not going to. Who do you vote for????

I'm going to most likely vote for McCain as, in regard to the other issues I vote on (education as I am a former science teacher, SBIR and science R&D as I am a tech transfer consultant), he is the best positioned to make a positive impact that will affect me and my career. 

My first choice was always Hillary and I can poke too many holes in most of Obama's positions.

For the record, I am incredibly liberal but I vote only after doing extensive research on all available options.

I"m sorry, but anyone who believes in gay rights and votes for the Republican is shooting themselves in the foot - or some place else.  Seriously.  What position do you think that the judges McCain would appoint will take on all the issues that matter to you?  Do you think McCain will work for equal rights for all regardless of sexual orientation?  Or will he work with those who believe that it should be legal to discriminate against gays?

McCain voted against prohibiting job discrimination based upon sexual orientation.

Obama sponsored legislation in Illinois that would ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

I'm certainly not advocating anyone be a one-issue voter, but the choice seems pretty clear to me.

I agree with  Kari.  I'm not into one-issue voting, but as both female and gay, it would be suicidal for me to vote for right-wingers.  Or to abstain from voting, when there are clear and vast differences between the two candidates, as is the case now.

That said, as a progressive I would never vote for anyone that right-wing anyway!  Clinton, while good on gay issues and strong on choice, is way too conservative on many other issues.  I'm Obama, all the way!!

Kari, I completely agree with what you said.

I was a Hillary fan but I will throw my support towards Obama now.  No WAY would I support McCain.

Mel, I see your point. One has to consider all aspects of their life and which ones that would get met are more important.

I am having a really hard time choosing. I have been behind Hillary all the way. I think McCain will be another Bush and that just scares the wits outa me. There is just something about Obama I don't like. There is lots of specific things, but there's just that one thing at the back of my brain that I can't put my finger on. Know what I mean?

I am way too liberal to vote for McCain, he's the opposite of everything I stand for and believe in. I might honestly not vote; which ticks me off because I get mad at people who don't vote, and I don't think you can complain if you dont vote. However, I'm afraid if this is the mentality of most people (since most that wont vote are Dems) that McCain will win. Thankfully, I still have 5 months to think this over.

Sometimes I think we look at candidates as if we were searching for a life partner.  "Well, I mostly agree with her, but I'm not sure she's *the right* president for me..."  :)

We have two candidates who have a chance of becoming president.  That's it.  We can't wait around for *the right one* to come along, and do without a president until it happens, though I seriously wish we could! 

Sarah - if McCain is the opposite of everything you believe in, then does it really matter if you don't quite like Obama?  (The same would go in reverse, btw).  Do you want a president who stands for everything you dislike, or one who is closer to your values even if he isn't quite what you would have chosen?

If you stand on principal and decide you won't vote for him because [whatever], even though you really dislike McCain, you may find yourself in the same position as a Florida voter who voted for Nader because they just didn't quite like Gore.  That worked out well.

ETA - I know I sound like a big Obama backer, but I'm really not.  I have reservations and doubts about him, but when I look at the direction that McCain would take the country there's really no choice. 

A vote for McCain is a vote for the same failed policies of the last 8 years.  Even though he is more liberal than Bush, he is now pandering hard to the right-wingers.  Obama isn’t my first choice, but I’ll vote for him.  I really wanted to see Hillary in the White House.

Obama has surrounded himself with competent people and ran a good campaign, which says something about his leadership skills. If he does the same after his election then his lack of experience may be a non-issue.

Exactly Kari. LOL

I'm more than likely going to vote, and it'll be for Obama. I'll just do it like a 5 year old cleaning their room; because I have to. Anything is better than what we have going on now, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

I would NEVER vote for McCain. I do think choosing a president is something we should consider more seriously, esp the younger generations. Even though it's only 4 (or 8) years, it can take a long time to clean those years up (like this next president will have to do). The president affects the years (s)he is in term plus many years down the road.

We'll be voting for Obama, as long as he does not choose Hillary as his running mate. If he picks Hillary as VP, we'll be voting third party, though we have not yet specifically narrowed that down. I absolutely cannot feel comfortable with abstaining my vote, so I will definitely vote.

It's a shame there are no pro-gay marriage candidates this time around.  We can only help that the positive things happening at the states level like in CA and NY will keep expanding and make an impact on the seated president.  The biggest impact would probably be on Obama.

A vote for McCain is a vote for the same failed policies of the last 8 years.  Even though he is more liberal than Bush, he is now pandering hard to the right-wingers.  Obama isn’t my first choice, but I’ll vote for him.  I really wanted to see Hillary in the White House.

I feel the exact same way.  The Democratic ticket right now supports the ideas and freedoms that are most important to me, such as keeping religion out of government, pro-choice, not trying to ban gay marriage, more environmentally-friendly, etc. 

Kari, as it stands now, they are going to continue to discriminate against me for being trans regardless of who gets in.  When it comes down to the issues I support and vote on, the only thing that Obama has over McCain is that he is more pro-gay and more likely to support pro-choice.  However, I am not a one-issue voter.

I am many things.  I am a gay transman.  I am a birth mother, step-mother to some, step-father to others.  I am a former wife and a current husband.  I am a rape victim, a feminist, a recently diagnosed epileptic, a person with Aspergers Syndrome, and a former member of the media.  I'm a scientist, a R&D consultant, a writer, a small business owner, an advocate, a member of Mensa, a registered independent, and an educator.  I just finished filming a TV documentary this past Tuesday which ended up being mostly on the state of science education in this country.  To just vote on my LGBT status would be to reduce my entire life to just one issue and I can't ethically do that.

I am a voter and have voted in every election since I was 18 by analysing the issues and using that to decide who to support, but I need to vote for who will destroy my life the least.  Hillary would have improved my life on nearly all fronts.  Obama's policies that affect me the most are for the most part disasterous to not only my career, but my family.  It would be professional suicide for me to vote for Obama.  And I, as a general rule, vote democrat. 

It would be professional suicide for me to vote for Obama.

I feel like it will be suicide to every OTHER aspect of your life if McCain is prez - how do you decide which is more important?  Just curious. 

Which policies are you talking about specifically, Mel?  I don't see much in the way of specifics by either candidate, and certainly nothing that screamed "professional suicide" based on education or science in Obama's platform.  So I'd be interested in hearing what you mean.

Edited to add links to each candidates statements about education and a bried synopsis:

McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/19ce50b5-daa8-4795-b92d-92bd0d985bca.htm

Wants "choice" of public schools, which I assume means vouchers - and would deny federal support to any state that does not provide it.  Supports No Child Left Behind. 

Obama: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/

Obama has lots of specifics, as opposed to McCain who seems to only have a single response to education, so I'm going to leave some things out.  Briefly: Wants to provide "support" to children under 5.  Proposes to expand Head Start.  Believe NCLB needs to be changed.  Put more emphasis on science and math education.  Spend more on teacher recruitment, training, and retention.  Provide a tax credit for college tuition costs.

I really don't see anything here that is job threatening.  I presume, because this is all that McCain says about education, that you must support vouchers, Mel?  I still don't see it as a "professional suicide" issue, even if your livelihood is tied to a private school that needs or would thrive with vouchers, since vouchers are a state by state issue at the moment. So obviously, there's something that I'm not seeing.

I'm with Kari and Jessie.  From a fiscal standpoint, DH and I should be voting Republican - they have sheltered us well financially.  But I absolutely cannot stomach what has been done to this country under the current regime, and while I stand to lose a lot of benefits I have gained in the last 8 years, there is NO WAY I will vote merely to protect my own financial interests (unlike a very good friend of mine who is doing exactly that).  Life, sustainability of the planet, ending this asinine war, and personal rights and freedoms are simply too important to me.

Let's have some more No Child Left Behind.  AWESOME.  Ugh.  And bring on the abstinence only education as well.  *sarcasm*

Grr!  I just wrote up this whole detailed post that I spent 2 hours to do and then my webbrowser cleared itself!  So because I no longer have 2 hours (now I have less than 2 minutes), I will condense this really shortly. 

As far as my personal life.  Since I was legally married to my partner prior to transition, my marriage contract will always be valid.  No person who has ever been married prior to transition has ever had their marriage challenged.  When my gender marker gets changed, I become a legally married federally recognised same-sex couple.  That is one benefit to being trans assuming you are interested in the other sex physically.  I also have other work-arounds which one practically needs to have if one lives in a conservative state.  I live in the Bible Belt and I know many of you live in much more liberal areas.  Trust me, its horrible down here and you have not seen discrimination until you have lived in the Bible Belt.  All of us find our ways around somehow and many of us believe that if a door shuts, another one will open.

Obama's issue with delaying the VSE and using that to expand preschool science/space education and inspire children shows a fundamental misunderstanding of NASA's current effect on preschool/elementary school age children.  Manned spaceflight (of which the VSE would be a part) is the number 1 inspiration for wanting to grow up to be a scientist.  Additionally the VSE and other NASA projects, are "jobs programs" which affect every state not just Texas, California, and Florida.  Cutting the NASA budget (NASA BTW gets less than 0.5% of the federal budget) would leave hundreds of thousands of scientists, engineers, and support staff unemployed.  The ISS alone requires 300K jobs to maintain.  Cut NASA too much and you will have something very similar to the Dot Com bust.  For more information I suggest listening to The Space Show ( http://www.thespaceshow.com/ )  Go to the guest search and listen to programs that relate to STEM education, Obama, McCain, Clinton, and related areas.

Obama does not appear to have even heard of ITAR and in fact at the ISDC conference a few weeks ago there was an incident relating to that.  McCain at least is somewhat familiar with it and understands that it needs reform.  ITAR is this arms export control which reducing our current exports due to the cost (thousands to millions of dollars) of going through the ITAR procedure even for something as silly as special needs software which is certainly not a weapon.  It is also making our country lose investors and lose customers as other countries can advertise their products as ITAR free.  The law is in bad need of reform and it is affecting everyone from backyard inventors, small businesses, to larger corporation.  This also affects our science education system (especially college and above), our imports, and ultimately our economy.  That is perhaps one of the most damaging things to our economy at present time.  I could argue that the war is better for the economy than ITAR to be honest.

I think I was originally making another point here but I will skip it because I can't remember what I was saying and go directly to another topic.

Regarding vouchers, etc.  I am all for school choice especially as a parent and as a scientist.  For high school, I opted to pick my high school and I was registered at a school about an hour away and it went well.  If someone wants to homeschool that is cool too.  I actually see the school system as being completely inefficient in so many ways.  If I wasn't so horrible with young children, I would be doing it just to assure that my daughter is taught science correctly and I would like a partial refund on the small mountain of school tax that we have to pay down here and use that money to purchase tutors or books.  Perhaps if there were more school vouchers (or some type of school choice like I had), the religious loons who have been taking over the public schools down here could take their kids and get out.  Although I don't like the idea of "public" money going to religious schools, but around here the public schools are effectively religious schools anyway, most of the privates aren't though!  I would kill to be able to send my daughter to one of the good private schools down here.

I'm all for funding NASA, but among the NASA scientists I know (many) Bush's plans are regarded as a joke and the potential for sending a man to Mars as part of the plan is scoffed at.  I think this article puts it best:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4260504.html

Obama's plan is to delay the plan by five years.  McCain proclaims himself to be a supporter of space exploration but plans to freeze domestic discretionary spending and expect NASA to accomplish the goal without enough money.  From a strictly NASA point of view, both candidates are losers.

Manned spaceflight (of which the VSE would be a part) is the number 1 inspiration for wanting to grow up to be a scientist.

As a former scientist, I find this hard to believe.  Was this from some study or report, or something?

LG, actually, yes from what I understand.  There have been several reports and surveys that say NASA is the biggest influence.  I am unsure of who was the first source to provide this information, its one of those statistics that is constantly being thrown around.  I would like to one day do a large scale, long-term study on STEM students and their future.  I have also heard that the NASA influence on young minds is even stronger in other countries than our own and given my experience with the International Space University and the One Giant Leap Foundation, I get to see those emails and see these people. 

I can confirm in the "Adopt a Scientist" program in which I was an "adoptee" for two years, the survey results from ~600 scientists (mostly PhD level) did seem to support the idea of NASA or NASA programs as being a top influence, regardless of their specific branch of science.  (Although the Adopt a Scientist program was run by physics groups, it had a huge amount of chemists, biologists, geologists, etc.)  The only other one that really competed with NASA was the influence of family.  I personally was equally influenced by NASA and my father. 

And yes, neither of the candidates could be considered the best on space.  The only person who had a very educated space advisor was Hillary.  However, Obama's delay is very likely to kill the VSE program, we can see that in the history of the space program.  Delayed programs get killed for the most part.  McCain, on the other hand, has been active in his support of going to Mars.