And the day's off to a good start...

[A Black Falcon]

When a candidate says we should "spread the wealth", I see a red flag that will likely result in my taxes being raised, perhaps for social programs with which I do not agree.

All Americans of both parties support "spreading the wealth" unless they're radical libertarians or anarchists, essentially. This is the effect of having "taxes". For instance, here's a good video of McCain advocating "spreading the wealth".

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Obama is less of a socialist than much of the Democratic party, in fact; he's opposed to true universal health care, which a very substantial part (a majority, I absolutely believe) of the party supports. One of Hillary Clinton's major attacks against Obama was that his healthcare plan wasn't a universal health care plan, in fact... he's no more "socialist" than any other American politician.

I, of course, wish he would support universal health care...

Oh, and on a related note, I really liked how the Colbert Report dealt with this... Steven Colbert had the actual Socialist Party candidate on the show, who was very clear about how socialist Obama wasn't. :)

He votes with the party more than 90% of the time (the few times he actually executed his duties as Illinois senator), so I have every reason to expect a liberal administration.

You know who has the most missed votes in congress in the past two years?

John McCain. Yes, he even managed to beat Tim Johnson in misses, and Johnson missed a year with a brain tumor! Astounding...

You're right that all of the candidates missed votes, but that's true for all candidates of both parties who were holding elected offices, and it's just a side effect of being a candidate and an officeholder at the same time. But anyway, those 'most liberal in the Senate' ratings, etc, are extremely deceptive. There is absolutely no way he is the most liberal person in the Senate, absolutely no way.