Automatic. I've driven manual transmissions (learned to drive on a '65 LeMans with a stick) - not enough to be expert, but enough to get around easily - and for normal driving, I don't see any advantage to it. Admittedly, they're far more fun if I've got an open road with plenty of twists but only infrequent stops...aside from that, why bother? For most freeway/highway driving, it just sits in one gear while I cruise, anyway. Might as well be automatic. For traffic jam driving, I like not having to pump the clutch every four car lengths.
The common reasons given for manuals being "better" don't apply to me. Better gas mileage - yes, marginally, but I guarantee I burn more gas the one time I stall/jackrabbit start than I saved over the last two thousand miles of driving. If I got good enough that I never stalled/jackrabbited, this would, admittedly, go away. But then, I'm already getting 35-38 mpg, so this isn't a huge deal for me.
Better control on ice - given my car's "start in 2nd" option, I can start up on ice as well as anyone. And downshifting is always possible, even in an automatic. And I don't have to worry about the uber-steep driveway into my alley as much (again, if I actually drove one regularly, I'm sure I could learn to be good enough for that not to bother me, either).
Easier/cheaper maintenance - true enough. I've worked on both, and manual is easier to work with. Of course, I've only worked on trannies from late-sixties Pontiacs. None of the new cars I've driven have needed transaxle work (including my current workhorse, with 220k miles on it), so I this isn't real relevant to me, either.
What it amounts to is that only thing a manual can do that my automatic can't - skip gears shifting up - isn't something the lack of which bothers me.
Now, I don't do any racing, towing, performance driving, or anything like that. My car gets me to and from work, to and from the range, to and from my g.f.'s apartment (ninety miles away), and around town. It's just a tool for the job, and an automatic is a tool that lets me spend more time focused on the road, the traffic, and my surroundings instead of on my car.
This is much the same reasons I'd rather drive a car with an automatic choke, too (and I say this as someone who drove a car with a manual choke for three years).