Voices without Votes continuously aggregates interesting links about the election from world bloggers. Our authors take turns picking their top 3 personal favorites every weekday.

What do a 29-year-old “strong conservative” Canadian, a 22-year-old “Sudanese thinker,” and an Irish-American poet from New Jersey have in common?

In the wake of the third and final U.S. presidential debate, the triumvirate form an unlikely bond and agree that Republican candidate John McCain has a lot going for him and that the election will ultimately come down to ideology.

Let's start in Ontario, Canada with the opening sentence from The Strong Conservative indicating Barack Obama is a socialist and ought to be compared to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German revolutionary Karl Marx.

Obama's health care plan was as complicated as nuclear fusion, I have no idea who gets what or how much, except the government basically runs it. That's all I need to know.

Most important, Obama can now be known as America's Robin Hood. Taxpayers can sleep peacefully knowing that Obamessiah will happily redistribute wealth in America in an unbiased and benevolent fashion. First on the list: Acorn, followed by the now unemployed former works from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Jaime Gorelick and Frank Raines.

Skipping ahead, we read:

The more I see Obama however, the more nervous he makes me. This guy has no clue about the economy, no clue about foreign policy, and a history that no one really knows about. His entire life is veiled in secrecy and misdirection and he can't point to one single accomplishment in his life. It is frightening to think that Obama is so close to the Presidency, a man who wants to gut the military, retreat in the face of terrorists, and impose a socialistic ideology on America.

Powerful stuff from America's northern neighbor. If you're reading along, what do you think so far? This commentary goes contrary to the heart of most of Voices without Votes‘ bloggers, right? Post a comment below.

But first, we fly across the pond to sub-Saharan Africa and catch up with Drima, an Afro-Arab Sudanese Muslim and millennial blogger who states up front in The Sudanese Thinker that until recently, he never heard of Obama who he called “a no name.”

Drima backed McCain from day one and elaborates about Obama at the debate:

I liked how he sailed through McCain’s attack and question about Ayers calmly and rather eloquently like it was no big deal. On the other hand, I loved how McCain looked into the camera and started talking directly to “Joe.”

It was kinda funny, but I liked his emphasis on the importance of smaller government. His performance in this debate was better than the previous one which is ironic, since the format of the previous debate is supposed to be McCain’s favorite – town halls. During the first debate, he was the winner though.

Hmm. Drima admits a love for McCain but thinks Obama had a better start. Keep reading:

…after watching the two candidates hit each other back and forth, I’m coming out in favor of Obama but with my nose squeezed tightly.

Thing is, when the race began, I was backing McCain. I wanted to see him win. Moreover, I wanted to see Hillary [Clinton] and Rudy [Giuliani] lose, lose, lose.

Like the Canadian blogger above, you won't find many non-Americans in the blogosphere indicating a favoritism toward the Republican candidate. But here's where Drima, if presented the opportunity, wouldn't vote for McCain:

I like McCain, and I don’t have the kind of hatred many on the left have towards him, but ultimately, I believe his choice for VP was terrible. It served him well but only in the short-term. Moreover, I’m tired of seeing the lack of pressure being exerted by Elephants on Sudan to implement the CPA and settle the Darfur conflict.

If you click the above link for “The Sudanese Thinker,” you can read more of Drima's thoughts about Obama and Darfur and how McCain lacks the ideological perspective.

Which brings us back to the United States and to Michael Lally, an Irish-American blogger who agrees Obama won the debate but my focus in this summary is on the third thought of a political diatribe where Lally portrays the different sides of the U.S. political scene.

He begins:

Liberals, by definition, are humanists. They believe in equal rights, solving problems with reason and compromise, intellectual curiosity and openness, etc.

Moderates, by definition, believe in a balance, a middle way, a repudiation of ideology in favor of practicality and, obviously, moderation.

Independents can have varied beliefs, but again, they do not succumb to the ideology of either major party, though they may adhere to another ideology (libertarianism e.g.), and have never had the power of controlling any branch of our government so have no history of schemes and tactics to maintain power.

True conservatives, of which there are few these days, believe in fiscal responsibility, smaller government, personal responsibility, and generally in ideals that have been better represented by Democrats in the past several decades than Republicans (e.g. the most fiscally responsible administration in most of our lifetimes was Clinton’s, the least fiscally responsible were Reagan’s and the present one).

Rightwing Republicans, so-called neo-conservatives, the ones who have been dominant in the Republican Party since Reagan, and on the rise since Nixon, and entrenched in the past eight years in all branches of government (it continues to be one of their big lies that the Congress is controlled by Democrats for the past two years, when they know that because of the almost even split in the Senate, the Democrats cannot override Republicans in Congress to get bills passed the Bush administration objects to, etc.) have demonstrated clearly they are only interested in power.

Lally continues on a rant about Roe v. Wade, former Presidents Jimmy Carter and John F. Kennedy, and brings the conversation back to Obama:

While the most thoughtful Republicans lately have been saying they intend to vote for Obama, or at least accept that an Obama victory might be for the best and they’ll regroup and come back in four years or in the mid term Congressional elections, the more strident rightwing Republicans have been making it clear an Obama victory will be a victory for terrorism, socialism, communism and gangsterism, all legitimate targets, in their minds, for vigilantism.

Let’s hope they’re too busy dealing with their own financial problems to actually do anything extreme. But I do not put it past them.

You've read a variety of ideas here. Can you see why I picked these out as my favorites of the day? Ultimately, blogging is about ideologies and these blog posts speak to the heart of the matter. Thoughts? Post a comment below!