Yesterday, I was in a good mood and wrote an article asking for the reader to only write the positive reasons they were going to vote for the candidate of their choice and to then find at least two positive things they could write about concerning the other candidate. The results were interesting. Most of the respondents were democrats who were impressed with Obama's social policies, policies toward women and gays, ObamaCare and taxation policy. Many Obama supporters also spoke glowingly about the family image the Obama's radiate from the
White House. Obama supporters also gave Romney credit for being a good family man and some praised his business acumen.

What was somewhat distressing in the response to the article were the paucity of responses that were written in support of Mitt Romney. The Romney supporters could be counted on one hand and in general were not identifying specific policy issues which have drawn them in to the Romney camp.

I had originally thought to do a follow-up article describing the positives that both parties saw their presidential candidate in. Unfortunately, I do not have enough data to do this. So I'm going to try something else. My argument in this election has been that this is an election of contrasts, of competing visions for America's future. So today, let's attempt this. What is it about the platform of the candidate being run by the opposition party that draws you to this candidate? Is there anything in the platform of the candidate you support that you disagree with?

Again, I hope to stay on issues here, not personalities. Let me start:

I am voting for President Obama. The republican ticket as proposed by Mitt Romney has these items in them which are major roadblocks toward getting my vote:

1. increasing funding for the department of defense.
2. taxation policies that will explode the federal deficit and favor those on the upper income levels.
3. opposition to Roe V. Wade
4. opposition to DADT and support of DOMA
5. support of educational vouchers
6. opposition to ObamaCare
7. Continued support for Social Security
8. Continued support for Medicare / Medicaid

Are there areas that the President supports that I do not? Yes. They include:

1. continuing the war in Afghanistan until 2014
2. continued use of drones against non-combattents and U.S. citizens
3. government spying on U.S. citizens without standard warrant procedures
4. not developing trade policies that are fair to the American worker.

I've been around the block a few times to know that no candidate is perfect, but some are less perfect than others. Elections are about finding the candidate who cares the most for the American people and will lead them wisely. For me, after all the platforms have been studied, after all the debates, after all the odds, that choice is easy. It's Obama and Biden