McCain or Obama?

I'm curious to see which Presidential candidate this blog's readers support (I suspect that many readers are not U.S. citizens, so here's your chance to vote!).  The candidates are listed alphabetically -- that seemed like the fairest approach.

Which U.S. Presidential candidate do you support?
	McCain
	Obama
pollcode.com free polls

That first question is about general support.  Here's one more, relating specifically to trade:

Which U.S. Presidential candidate do you prefer on trade policy issues?
	McCain
	Obama
pollcode.com free polls

I'll keep this post at the top for a few days to give people a chance to vote.

THE RESULTS (10 p.m. EST, Friday, Oct 31):

I think we have a big enough sample now to report some results.  On the first question, it was an Obama landslide: 99-13 (88% for Obama).  On the trade policy question, it was dead even: 45-45.  Interesting, although not too surprising.

On the trade question, I confess to being a bit torn.  On some issues, subsidies in particular, I think McCain is very good (unless you favor subsidies, in which case you won't like him much!).  Generally speaking, it seems to me that McCain would continue the current administration's trade policies pretty much as is.  So if you like those policies, you will probably like McCain on trade.

What Obama's trade policy will look like is less clear.  There are a few things we know, such as:  he favors the use of subsidies in a number of areas; he wants to incorporate strong labor and environmental protections into trade agreements; and he has talked explicitly about taking tax breaks away from companies that "ship jobs overseas" and giving tax breaks to companies "that create jobs in the U.S."  He has made clear, though, that he believes in free trade in principle.  One thing I'm uncertain about is how hard he will push forward with trade negotiations.  For example, he could use his skepticism of some bilateral FTAs to stop doing anything on trade (sort of like Hillary Clinton's proposed "time-out").  On the other hand, he could turn away from bilaterals and focus on the WTO, by trying to come up with a new multilateral proposal that gets the Doha round moving. 

He is going to have a lot on his agenda, though, and it's not clear how prominent a role trade agreements will play.