So it looks like we have pretty similar views then on a bunch of issues! I guess it just comes down to what isses are most important to each of us and how that will effect a voting decision. One question I have is if you don't like either of the candidates then will you vote for one of them anyway or just choose not to vote? I don't know what I would do in that situation. By the way this has been a great discussion thanks for keeping it going.
That Lieberman link is great, I'm going to read it in more detail. Gotta support a fellow Jewish dude!
On the deficit thing I learned that short term deficits are fine, but long term deficits can be damaging to the economy. This is the Robert Rubin perspective, and what I learned from the economics dept. at NYU-Stern. Academics tend to disagree and have their own points of view so my bad for questioning your statement from your professor.
I pulled this from a recent article from the Brookings institutuion. I'm sure there are other articles that argue the opposite, but I figured I would just show you where I got my viewpoint on deficits from.
Effect of Long Term Deficits :-(
Conventional analyses of sustained budget deficits demonstrate the negative effects of deficits on long-term economic growth. Under the conventional view, ongoing budget deficits decrease national saving, which reduces domestic investment and increases borrowing from abroad.1 Interest rates play a key role in how the economy adjusts. The reduction in national saving raises domestic interest rates, which dampens investment and attracts capital from abroad.2 The external borrowing that helps to finance the budget deficit is reflected in a larger current account deficit, creating a linkage between the budget deficit and the current account deficit. The reduction in domestic investment (which lowers productivity growth) and the increase in the current account deficit (which requires that more of the returns from the domestic capital stock accrue to foreigners) both reduce future national income, with the loss in income steadily growing over time. Under the conventional view, the costs imposed by sustained deficits tend to build gradually over time, rather than occurring suddenly.
Effect of Short Term Deficits :-)
We emphasize that our focus is on the effects of ongoing, sustained budget deficits. It is important to underscore that temporary budget deficits can be beneficial by providing short-term macroeconomic stimulus when the economy is weak and has considerable unused resources of capital and labor. When necessary to spur a weak economy, policy-makers could employ various fiscal policy programs, each with relative advantages and disadvantages in different contexts. Whatever decisions are made about short-run fiscal policy when the economy is weak, the objective should be budget balance over the business cycle.
http://www.brook.edu/views/papers/orszag/20040105.htm 
