Originally Posted by loquitur

My general advice for elections is to vote for the person whom you think will handle the position in the best way. So in a presidential election, vote for the person whom you think will be the best president - and that is NOT necessarily the person who most agrees with your positions. The reason is that no one has any idea what will happen over the next four years, so the issues a presidential candidate runs on may have no relationship whatsoever to what the president, once elected, needs to do.

You don't have to go back any further than 2000 to see what I'm talking about. If Gore had become president, his presidency would have looked nothing at all like the presidency he was campaigning for in 2000. The world tossed the US President a curve ball. That certainly was the case with Bush, who I believe had zero to say about terrorism in 2000 and IIRC next to nothing about foreign policy in general. The issues positions in that campaign had little to do with the reality that ensued.

So vote for the person, not the position. Abilities and character count for more than statements of positions. Positions are changeable and malleable based on circumstances, but basic character is not.