Who is This Man?,,,

I'm having a really hard time figuring out John McCain. I know I won't be voting for him, but there's a part of me that wants to see what happens in a McCain/Palin administration. Much light has been made of the fact by the "liberal press" (The Daily Show) that McCain has abandoned the principles that he was once so popularly known for. He often disagreed with Republican platforms, including policies proposed by president Bush, the same president that humiliated him in 2000 for the purpose of "winning" an election. McCain lost, but came out looking like the better man, and being more respected than any president will ever be.
But respect isn't what a man wants, it's the power. That's why all presidents will be regarded with little respect. Nothing they ever do to be elected will be seen as respectful, it will merely be seen as a reason to hold the highest office in the land. It's a dirty job, not meant for respectable men. Mike Rowe did a segment on it on "Dirty Jobs," so what did McCain do? He cashed that respect in for a "higher" calling.
Ask McCain what he thinks about a politically divisive issue, and he will likely tell you the opposite of what he would have said seven years ago. But I have to wonder why he's doing this. Maybe it's all those years of being told to hold him in the highest of regards, but there's a part of me that wants to think McCain is doing this for a bigger purpose; that his selling out is the necessary sacrifice for doing what needs to be done once the man reaches that most exalted of offices.
So what will he do? Like I said before I won't be voting for him. Not only because I deplore his recent tactics, but mostly because even when he was a well-respected man, I disagreed with the vast majority of what he said. The morbid side of me will be voting for John McCain on election day.
Can a man really appear to abandon his highest ideals in the name of a greater cause? Will he return to the position he once chose, and see his agenda through? Will he use his power to advance the causes he spent most of his life fighting? Or will he simply get sucked in to being another president with little in the way of a moral compass, and even less in the way of a scruple? I wish there was a "what if..." machine that could show us such a future. Of course, if such a machine existed, not a single name on the list of 43 would remain the same. We would elect the right person, not the political winner.

The mirror has been around for a long time. The first mirror dates back to an ancient Turkish civilization eight thousand years ago. That's a long time ago. Since then, we have been obsessed with our image. Perhaps that adds to the fascination that our candidates' VP picks seem to be a sort of photo-negative mirror of who they are. Who's more vain than a presidential candidate? It can't be easy to listen to your advisers who are saying "Senator Obama, you have little foreign policy experience, you're black and young. We need someone who isn't." The same goes for McCain, "Old man, you're cranky, old, mean, ugly, centrist, principled, and not in line with current Republican values..."
They say the only decision you really make that matters as a presidential candidate is that of your second in command. So what does that fact that these people are able to set down and chose that which they've spent their entire life not becoming? One might say that they are able to see past their own ego to recognize their are but human, and a better half complements even the best of us. Others might say that they are so withdrawn from their own conscience and self-awareness that they don't even see themselves as a person anymore, just as the same tool we all see them as. The only difference is they get to have all the fun.

This is starting to sound a little fringe, so I'm going to say good night to you, but we'll discuss this at another time. I will say that the winners now are looking in some ways like the winners of yesterday. But that's only when they're winning. I've spoken my piece.