Yes, Barack is better

I don't want my last posting to be misunderstood. I voted for Bob Barr in the current election, but I do think the Obama-Palin ticket is clearly superior to the McCain-Palin ticket. (I cast an early absentee ballot, like many voters in Ohio. I tried to arrange a vote swap, promising to vote for Obama in Ohio if a Democrat in a "safe" Democratic state would vote for Barr, but I got no takers and gave up.)

My big issues in the current election are foreign policy and civil liberties, and Obama is clearly preferable on both to John McCain, who in these two areas seems determined to follow in President Bush's footsteps.

That said, please spare me the rhetoric about how Obama is going to set a new tone in Washington or practice a new kind of politics. Here in Ohio, a key swing state, Obama supporters are engaging in vote fraud. His acolytes in the Strickland Administration are ransacking state databases to dig up dirt on Obama's opponents. Nationwide, the campaign that broke its promise to use public financing is engaging in campaign finance fraud. If anything, this time around the Democrats are dirtier than the Republicans.