Any anti-war voter who was paying attention knew from the beginning that he was not their candidate, despite all the nice-sounding sound bytes about "bringing the troops home". He spelled out his plan for Iraq in detail very early in the primaries, as did Hillary. Their plans were very similar, and were not withdrawal plans, but plans merely to reconfigure the occupation, and give it a lower profile. The problem is that almost no one was paying attention to anything beyond the sound bytes and the P.R. material on his website, and ditto for Hillary.

Even their promises to withdraw combat troops were verbal sleight of hand. Both of them spelled out some of the missions of the tens of thousands of occupation troops that would remain, and most of those missions involved combat, so unless they were planning to send cooks, truck drivers, and mechanics on combat missions, they could not withdraw all combat troops.

I voted for neither Obama nor Hillary in the primary, even though they were the only two left standing by that time. Everyone else had dropped out.

I can safely refuse to vote for him in the general, because there is absolutely no question that he will win my state. Therefore, I will vote for a third party candidate, or write someone in who is more in line with my principles. However, the idea of McCain as President scares me a great deal, and the idea of the narcissistic ignoramus Palin as VP, let alone President (and there is a 30% chance that she WOULD become president in the next four years) scares me to death.

The most dangerous thing in the United States is the electorate.

Since "the left" has come up, I might as well post a reply I gave to a European asking how McCain could be even with Obama now:

America's formally a democracy, but not substantively. (Of course, that's becoming increasingly true of Europe as well.) One goes through the motions of democracy, but the political system is incapable of producing outcomes that the people want.

Both parties have been captured by special interests, and the views of most people are controlled by the corporate media, which, unsurprisingly, are a propaganda machine serving corporate and elite interests. Democrats are afraid to give the people what they want, such as universal health care or ending wars, because Democrats realize that they would lose political contributions and get trashed by the media. Since the Democrats today are basically a more moderate version of the Republican party, about half of the public doesn't even bother to vote, while the Republican Party and various right-wing news outlets are able to keep enough backward people motivated to vote Republican so that it is hard for Democrats to win national elections. (Presidential elections being decided not by popular vote, but through the Electoral College, which weighs votes from sparsely populated states more than votes from states with large urban populations, does not help.)

The Democrats haven't changed, even for this election cycle. It now appears that they will continue forever not giving the people what they want, continually hoping that the public will finally come to its senses and realize that the Republicans are running the country into the ground, and that the Democrats, if elected, would try to moderate this process.

Republicans are like fetuses: both are incapable of thought. That's why Republicans are against abortion.

If the choice is Obama and Biden vs McCain and Palin, as it certainly is, and if the race in NY is close, then, we on the left have no choice but to support the former.  I want to vote for the Green Party in the worst way, but, if necessary, I will hold my nose and vote for the Democrat ticket.

I agree with your assessment on Obama moving to the right and I think his realignment sucks.  But, McCain is like more and more insane, and Palin, I think will bring back the Inquisition.  If they win, it's over for America.

May joy and enthusiasm be with us always!