Oomis, I don’t understand how you can say that not voting at all is a vote for Obama. I guess that assumes I would be voting for Romney if it weren’t for his problematic abortion stance. But that’s not the case.
A few of each side’s positions, as I mentioned above, arguably violate the Torah. But most of them don’t. Though there are Torah sources that pertain to things such as taxes, environmental protection, health care, employment regulations, education, the criminal justice system and anti-poverty policies such as food stamps or job training (see a recent Chabad video series exploring these issues), there’s not necessarily a clear Torah position on these topics. It can go either way, depending on how you interpret the Torah, on which competing considerations are most important to you, and on which approach you believe is most effective, based on your view of the evidence.
In my view, the Democrats’ positions on most domestic policy issues, such as social spending, environmental protection, and health care, are based on a more correct understanding of the facts, and more likely to improve people’s lives. So I actually hope Obama wins.
Even though I oppose Obama’s Israel policy, it’s not much worse than Bush’s (he was responsible for the Gaza pullout, for example), and I doubt Romney’s would be much better in practice. I also think Democrats are naive when it comes to terrorism and “moderate” Islamists, but I don’t trust the Republicans on foreign policy either. Bush campaigned on a promise to stop “nation-building” but started a totally unnecessary and bloody war with Iraq to impose democracy on the country (Democracy, you might note, is a nice thing but it’s not exactly mentioned in the Torah, much less as a motive for war.)
Even so, I can’t bring myself to vote for someone (Obama) who believes Jews should be ethnically cleansed from East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria (to make way for the Palestinian state, where Jews won’t be allowed). Just because the whole world believes that, doesn’t make it right — it’s always wrong to ban a religious or ethnic group from a country or area.