*ELECTION 2008*

If you want to vote for the best Presidential Candidate possible, why not do it? That's what our Bishops want from you. Afterall, aren't we looking for a candidate with similar principles as Our Lord?

This is what I intend to do, with the help of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship and Priests For Life's "Five Non-Negotiables," and I plan to help you do the same. The purpose of the USCCBs Voter's Guide is to outline what we should be looking for in a candidate based upon the teachings of Jesus Christ.

For instance, the Bishops have 8 major issues that are of the greatest importance (the greatest of "intrinsic" evils). They are:

Abortion
Embryonic Stem-Cell Destruction
Euthanasia
Genocide
Human Cloning
Racism
Targeting of Non-Combatants
Torture

Priests for Life have Five "Non-Negotiables":

Abortion
Embryonic Stem-Cell Destruction
Euthanasia
Human Cloning
Same-Sex Marriage


With this information, I've created a scoring system to rate the candidates on these 9 issues. Let me point out that the Bishops list 20+ additional less-major issues, but I think if we find a candidate solid on these 9 issues, their conscience is probably sound enough to make decent decisions for our country on foreign policy, immigration, health care, etc.

In determining scoring, I had to weight the issues where the direct targeting of the innocent and defenseless were the greatest. That results in the following:

20 Points
Abortion
Embryonic Stem-Cell Destruction
Euthanasia
Genocide

15 Points
Targeting of Non-Combatants (Weighted slightly less than the above 4, mainly because a nuclear weapon targets the "enemy," even though the imminent death of the innocent cannot be avoided)

10 Points
Human Cloning
Racism
Same-Sex Marriage
Torture


If you decide to not even consider voting for a pro-abortion candidate, I cannot fault you and no one should consider you a "single issue voter." If there was a pro-slavery candidate, I think we could all agree that declining to vote for him/her based on that "single issue" is completely acceptable and warranted. I must warn you though: Of the 6 Presidential Candidates, only 1 of them can be considered pro-life. The other 5 either have questionable past voting records or pro-abortion platforms.


And here are the 6 Presidential Candidates for the November 4th Election:



Chuck Baldwin








Bob Barr








John McCain








Cynthia McKinney








Ralph Nader







Barrack Obama








If your mind is already made up, at least continue reading to see the outcome...and keep in mind this is an unbiased study.


"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."

John Quincy Adams

ABORTION (20)
20 - Baldwin
0 - Barr
10 - McCain
-20 - McKinney
-20 - Nader
-20 - Obama

EMBRYONIC STEM-CELL DESTRUCTION (20)
20 - Baldwin
20 - Barr
-20 - McCain
-20 - McKinney
-20 - Nader
-20 - Obama

EUTHANASIA (20)
20 - Baldwin
20 - Barr
20 - McCain
-20 - McKinney
20 - Nader
-20 - Obama

GENOCIDE (20)
20 - All Candidates

TARGETING OF NON-COMBATANTS (15)
10 - Baldwin
0 - Barr
-15 - McCain
15 - McKinney
15 - Nader
15 - Obama

TORTURE (10)
10 - Baldwin
10 - Barr
10 - McCain
10 - McKinney
10 - Nader
10 - Obama

RACISM (10)
10 - All Candidates

HUMAN CLONING (10)
10 - Baldwin
10 - Barr
10 - McCain
-10 - McKinney
5 - Nader
-10 - Obama

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE (10)
10 - Baldwin
5 - Barr
10 - McCain
-10 - McKinney
-10 - Nader
-10 - Obama

RESULTS:
130 - Chuck Baldwin
95 - Bob Barr
55 - John McCain
30 - Ralph Nader
-25 - Cynthia McKinney
-25 - Barrack Obama

That is pretty clear that per the Bishops, the best candidate for us Catholics to vote for would be Chuck Baldwin. Even if you factored in the minor issues - which Joe Healy did (Thanks, Joe!) - Chuck Baldwin would still be the clear-cut "winner."
So now what are you going to do?

For some perspective, I'm going to unveil the results of some of the pre-Primary candidates and a couple Veeps:


135 - Ron Paul (R)

130 - Chuck Baldwin (Constitution)

115 - Sarah Palin (R)
115 - Alan Keyes (R)

105 - Mike Huckabee (R)

95 - Bob Barr (Libertarian)

55 - John McCain (R)

30 - Ralph Nader (I)

25 - Fred Thompson (R)

15 - Joe Biden (D)

5 - Mitt Romney (R)

-25 - Hillary Clinton (D)
-25 - Cynthia McKinney (Green)
-25 - Barrack Obama (D)

-55 - Rudy Giuliani (R)

HAPPY VOTING!