Obama voted for Bush's FISA bill. He voted for the PATRIOT Act II. He voted to continue the war. He chose as VP the guy who claimed to have written much of the PATRIOT Act to pass in 1995 after the Oklahoma City bombing.
I don't trust Obama on those issues at all, given his record. Bringing sanity to the war on terror isn't that important to him.
McCain also said he would close Guantanamo and end torture.
I'm sorry, but this party looks like a bunch of folks obsessing over a pretty politician who is moderately awful on the issues after 8 years of one who was completely awful on the issues, and not nearly as pretty.
And you should care about unionism. The 94% of Americans who aren't in unions are going to be fleeced by protectionist bills to pad the pockets of the powerful unions that support the Democratic Party.
The unions will not fade. Their biggest membership comes from federal government workers, whose numbers burgeoned under Bush and are bound to grow under Obama. Also, union firms like GM are getting $billions from the Federal Government to make up for the fact that they can't turn a profit on the market (the airlines did this, too). Tax money will keep them alive even if they are the dinosaurs of the marketplace.
When anti-China tariffs come down the line, you can thank the unions. Obama will not deny them. You can also nix the idea of school choice under an Obama administration, since the National Teacher's Union is a strong supporter of the Democratic Party. It's no wonder that Obama's plan for education is basically "more money! more money!". The unions couldn't have written a more favorable plan themselves.
I think you are wrong about schools. Obama repeatedly mentioned support of Charter schools (though not vouchers) in the debates. He specifically mentioned Michelle Rhee in DC as doing good work, which is highly encouraging to many of us who think Democrats have been on the wrong side of the education debate.
PS, I think you are right about "card check", which seems to me like one of the most important issues in this election which has gotten approximately zero public debate.
If only it was as black and white as you make it out to be: someone voted X on bill Y, they obviously feel X about Y. I shudder to think what it would be like if all the compromises I had to make every day were laid bare and presented in an absolute either-or form. Considering the complexity of bills and the amendments that are added and even the way they name them (PATRIOT is a prime example), I'm not so sure it's wise to interpret every single boolean vote as documenting someone's entire position on an issue.
