A Problem: This Republican Can't Find a Candidate to Vote For

There are currently more than ten Republicans who have thrown their hats in the ring to vie for candidacy for president of the United States. Among them are the top three players in the game: Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and John McCain. The significance of the current top three is that most likely one of these, and not one of the other several men, will be the Republican to run for his party in this presidential race. What's a voter to do when not one of these three is an acceptable candidate?

Republican voters will have to set aside some of their requirements in order to have the most important ones met. And so far they seem to have come up with Rudy Giuliani as the best man to settle for. I will address him first.

Rudy Giuliani
He is likely still riding the wave of "America's Mayor" as he was dubbed after his city was subjected to the horrific attacks of 9/11. This status has allowed many of his other aspects to be overlooked, so much so that a decent percentage of Republican voters are willing to accept his rather unacceptable position on abortion, particularly partial birth abortion. This has historically been one of the most important issues to Republicans, especially the conservative ones. It is surprising how many are willing to compromise this just to be sure that someone gets into the White House who isn't weak on terror. That, after all, is tremendously important to Republican voters as well, myself included. But I am absolutely unwilling to give my vote to someone who would give their vote to approve partial birth abortion. It's bothersome enough that he is openly pro-abortion at all.

John McCain
Sure, he is a likeable guy. I even appreciated his joke with the little "Bomb Iran" song, even more how he handled the critics afterward. But as many have, I also question much of the time why he even aligns himself with the GOP at all. Perhaps if it weren't for his military background, he probably wouldn't be as inclined to. Some of his positions are contradictory to one another. For instance, while he'd previously voted to prohibit same-sex marriage, he now states that banning same-sex marriage is unRepublican and says that it should be left to the states to determine. He also has what is considered a pro-life voting record, yet his position on specifics of abortion are all over the place. Plus, it is hard to reconcile his criticism of the current president for whom I voted and support. He would probably be more comfortable as a moderate Democrat, and I would trade him for Joe Lieberman anyday.

Mitt Romney
Admittedly, from early on and from a distance, Romney was who I thought I'd be going with. As the joke has been made that Massachusetts, while socially liberal, doesn't want a liberal in charge of its money, I thought it quite impressive that Mitt was able to get such a state to make him its governor. He also seemed promising with his conservative values. However, whether or not it's deplorable by some standards for this to matter, the Mormonism is a deal breaker for me.

This is not something that would matter to those who don't really have a strong conviction about Christ or any particular faith. To them, it's all the same, and it really isn't important anyway. But for this writer, it is the most important thing.

Now the problem voters face when none of the front-runners are acceptable, is that if there happens to be one or two guys who they feel good about, but they have no chance of catching up to the others, efforts are wasted in supporting said guys. The only two Republicans I would support for president at this time are Newt Gingrich and Fred Thompson., even though they haven't officially declared they will bother, and they surely won't be as prolific as the top three in their works to garner support.

So it's likely that I will have to just pass on voting in 2008. It's unfortunate to be in the position of having to compromise strong passions and convictions to ensure the vigilance of protecting national security. It shouldn't have to be this way.