Super Tuesday endorsements!

Matt has the blog equivalent of a public service announcement today:

Just a little reminder that if you live in a Super Awesome Incredible Tuesday state you should go vote today. And if you don't live in such a state but do know people who do, you should exhort them to vote. Participation is essential.

I disagree, actually; "participation" as a goal seems silly to me. If people are so uninterested in the election that they have to be exhorted by friends in other states to go to the polls, then my suspicion is that their vote will not be an informed attempt to select the best candidate. A better public service announcement might be: "If you live in a Super Tuesday state, and you don't know or care about the election, hey, have another beer."

But if you are going to vote, and you want my opinion on how you should cast your ballot, the prestigious Megan McArdle endorsements go to:

1) Barack Obama. No surprise here. He's slightly to the left of Hillary on goals, but he's well to the right of her on process. His goal is not more government so that we can all be caught up in some giant, expressive excercise of collectively enforcing our collective will on all the other people standing around us in the collective; his goal is improving transparency and minimizing government intrusion, while rectifying specific outcomes. His economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, is brilliant. Plus, he doesn't have Hillary Clinton's deep administrative ties, which means two good things: less capture by the bureaucracy, and arguably less ability to get things done. And frankly, I'm creeped out by the notion of a presidential succession that goes Bush . . . Clinton . . . Bush . . . Clinton.

2) Mitt Romney. I'm still deeply weirded out by the dog on the roof thing . . . but not as weirded out as I am by McCain-Feingold. Romney's instincts strike me as more libertarian. McCain is still way too captive to the military model--he seems not so much against elitism and authoritarianism, as convinced that the wrong people are running things. Romney's economic advisor is not only a highly-regarded Harvard professor of economics, but also a first-class blogger, suggesting a certain openness to the future. Plus Romney lacks McCain's charisma, which means that when he has bad ideas, he'll have more limited ability to enact them.

But as I say, no obligation to vote. If you can't muster up much feeling either way, you should probably stay home.