Why John McCain lost my vote.

Finally, I have made my decision.

Though, it hasn't come easily.

For some back story, I rooted for Huckabee during the primary. Though I liked John McCain, Huckabee provided the sensible Christian bump I needed.

But he lost.

So I was stuck. I remained undecided, until Aug 29, when McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate. Something was up. Since then, the rhetoric coming from the right has been absolutely appalling. Palin's constant pandering to the lowest common denominator showed me one thing: McCain isn't in charge, and it was Republican BS as usual. Plays were taken straight out of  Rove's book, dusted off, and reused without hesitation. 

It's obvious to me that McCain has let this thing run away from him, and when he most likely loses on Nov. 4, I feel that it will haunt him for the rest of his life. 'If only I would have done it my way'. 

It's obvious to me that when, during the primaries, the republican base hated McCain - he was too 'moderate' (which is why I liked him) - but have now made him a poster boy, that has something changed. The Republican base either changed their mind, or don't really care and will rally around whoever is the party candidate, or John McCain changed.

I believe it was the latter.

• John McCain WAS a maverick until he called himself one, and slapped it on a business card.
  
• John McCain WAS a leader until he made a seemingly hasty decision on Palin.
• John McCain DID put "country first" until suspended his campaign to go to Washington, first making stops on Katie Couric, and gave a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative, arriving 22 hours later. 
  
• John McCain WAS bipartisan until he didn't pick Joe Lieberman as his VEEP.
• John McCain WAS a different kind of politician until his campaign started with the insane "Pro-American", Palling around with Terrorists, Joe the Plumber nonsense. 

John McCain was all of those things and more, until he won his party's nomination.