Who Should I Support for President?

I haven’t had time to look at the pol­icy posi­tions of all of the can­di­dates run­ning for U.S. pres­i­dent, so I have no idea who I sup­port. The hard part about choos­ing a can­di­date is that no one ever matches my views com­pletely because I’m an inde­pen­dent mod­er­ate who’s a mix of sev­eral dif­fer­ent philosophies.

Read­ers of my blog have a gen­eral idea of my views, but let me crys­tal­lize them: I’m a social lib­eral with a touch of tra­di­tion­al­ism on cer­tain issues; a free-market, fis­cal con­ser­v­a­tive who thinks the gov­ern­ment should still pro­vide a safety net for those who fall to the bot­tom; an inter­na­tion­al­ist who sup­ports glob­al­iza­tion; a foreign-policy real­ist with a hint of ide­al­ism; a per­son who sup­ports Israel and will still crit­i­cize the coun­try when war­ranted; some­one who wants the gov­ern­ment to pre­serve and pro­tect civil lib­er­ties, no mat­ter what threats the United States faces; some­one who wants to wean the United States off of oil and fight cli­mate change; and some­one who with­draw U.S. troops from Iraq immediately.

Still, no sin­gle party holds all of my views. Most com­mu­nists and social­ists hate cap­i­tal­ism and glob­al­iza­tion. Many left­ists hate Israel and are fis­cally lib­eral. Most con­ser­v­a­tives are too socially con­ser­v­a­tive and in denial about global warm­ing. Lib­er­tar­i­ans do not sup­port inter­na­tion­al­ism and glob­al­iza­tion — they are too iso­la­tion­ist. Far-right par­ties are, well, nuts.

Most of the time, when­ever I sup­port a can­di­date, I end up com­pro­mis­ing on some of these posi­tions. But I don’t know where the cur­rent crop of can­di­dates stand. So, to my read­ers I must ask: Which can­di­date do you think I should sup­port, and why?

Adden­dum: I also want some­one who will get the United States out of the fis­cal night­mare I describe here and in other posts, as well as some­one who will try to implent these solu­tions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Update: I decided to sup­port Demo­c­rat Sen. Barack Obama; he is the can­di­date whose posi­tions most closely match mine, he has the abil­ity to inspire peo­ple, and he has the best chance against Sen. John McCain, the likely Repub­li­can nominee, in the gen­eral elec­tion. I respect McCain greatly, but I dis­agree him on many issues.