Thomas Sowell characterized (at around 1:30) the choice between McCain and Obama as one of disaster vs. catastrophe.

They both have very bad philosophies and I really don’t like either one of them.

And, since I live in Washington State, which will certainly elect electors for Obama, there’s no chance of my vote being decisive, so I’m extremely free to vote (or not) for purely expressive reasons.

So, I’ve cast my absentee ballot for the Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr.

But, although I voted for Barr, I do have a preference between the two major-party candidates and (like Sowell) I prefer disaster to catastrophe and hope that McCain manages to pull out an upset.

The main reason is that I’m afraid of one-party executive-legislative rule, and worry about how much damage would be done. The second reason is that there is a very good chance that the next president will nominate two Supreme Court justices, and I expect much better nominees from McCain than from Obama.

McCain is bad, but he might actually veto the most outrageous of congressional mischief and slow down the damage. And, a Democrat congress might deny him his most outrageous policy goals.

But, I realize it’s a longshot. Intrade has McCain’s chances at about 11% at the moment.

So, I expect that people will tend to vote for change they can fantasize about, and will elect Obama. Hopefully, he won’t be as bad as I fear, and any damage can be reversed within a few years.

Unfortunately, I’m not very optimistic about it at this point.

By the way, there have been some interesting posts about how libertarians should vote at the Volokh Conspiracy recently.