While I’m not as fond of Hillary Clinton’s campaign as I am Barack Obama’s, I’m certainly going to vote for the Democratic nominee. If it turns into an exercise of holding my nose because they can’t keep Mark Penn quiet, then I’ll do that and vote for Clinton.

Josh Marshall over at TPM has been highlighting some emails he’s been receiving from supporters of both Obama and Clinton who have sworn off voting for the other candidate in the general. He has a a thoughtful post up reflecting on these kind of emails and the polarization they imply. In particular, I want to highlight this:

That’s not to say that these small differences are reasons to choose one of the candidates over the other. But to threaten either to sit the election or vote for McCain or vote for Nader if your candidate doesn’t win the nomination shows as clearly as anything that one’s ego-investment in one’s candidate far outstrips one’s interest in public policy and governance. If this really is one’s position after calm second-thought, I see no other way to describe it.

Perspective, folks. A McCain presidency, where we continue to spend far above our means for a war that doesn’t serve our strategic interests is the surest way to accelerate and guarantee the end of America’s hegemony in the world.

I’ve said it before, but perhaps not clearly: George W. Bush’s presidency is responsible for the largest decline in American soft (economic) power in a century, at least. We are going to face a decline in our economic power because we can’t spend within our (rather significant) means. The national debt has nearly doubled during the eight years of the Bush presidency, and will possibly cross $10 trillion by the end of his term.

All of this was preventable. All of this would’ve helped mitigate the end of the housing bubble (though that would’ve been severe anyway), and help us deal with more threats around the world, but instead we’ve spent like mad and run up a huge deficit every year. Then, the government has done its best to hide the deficit in off-budget supplemental spending. The reserve then stopped reporting on the M3 money supply measure (removing, from what I understand, one of the concrete accountings of how much we’re issuing in debt).

The next president is going to have a lot on their hands to prevent further erosion of American soft power. Faced with a choice between a Democrat and a Republican, or specifically Clinton/Obama vs. McCain, the choice is clear. 2008 the right vote is voting D.