my political rant Raise your hand if you too are absolutely sick of this election nonsense. Okay, now put your hand down, you look pretty darn silly. Seriously, I really don't understand why things are so heated and divided when it comes to this election. As far as I'm concerned, it might as well be Barney Fife vs. Gomer Pyle. Yes, I think most of us agree that Bush does not exactly have a stellar record. But then again, Kerry has been a Senator for something like 20 years, and his only legacy is...uh, I can't think of even a single thing.

I know, I know, I need to do my civic duty and "go out and vote." I'm well aware that all of the celebrities, including but not limited to P. Diddy, think I should vote. And Michael Moore will not give me any free underwear if I don't. So before you come down here and chew my ear off for not doing my "civic duty," let me tell you that I do intend to vote for one of these guys. Although I don't see why it's any better if I flip a coin and vote. Is that really the best thing for our country? For everybody to vote, no matter how ignorant or indifferent they are? Perhaps not voting is my way of saying that I don't want either one of them. Or maybe instead of holding an election, we should just have one big official coin flip for all the marbles. You know that the 49.999% who don't get the guy they want will be calling "shenanigans" anyway.

My problem is that I have no real passion one way or the other. The best I can say about the guy I'm going to vote for is that I think he's the lesser of two evils. Sure, I know he's probably not going to go down as the best President ever, but I think he's probably going to be better than the other guy. How can anybody out there really have a stronger opinion than this? Nothing that either candidate has said or done has made me feel any more confident that he knows what he's talking about.

How can someone feel true passion for Bush when he's sent so many troops to fight in Iraq under the presumption that there were weapons of mass destruction, only to find that there were none? Just like the weapons inspectors kept trying to tell us. And when he took a perfectly good budget surplus and turned it into a huge budget deficit?

On the other hand, how can you be passionate about Kerry when the only thing he seems to have going for him is that his name is not spelled B-U-S-H? Or when he states that he has "deep religious convictions," but he says that it's not going to affect his decisions in any way? You can't have it both ways!

But so many people seem willing to come to blows about one guy or the other. Why? The way I see it is that one guy definitely sucks at being President, the other guy sucks at being Senator and will probably suck at being President. I just don't see how there are so many people so passionate about either one of these guys. Here's my take: people are passionate because it's a close race. It's a close race because they're both poor candidates. People are not passionate because these candidates are strong or competent. Maybe it's more of a fear that the "other" guy wins than confidence in their own guy.

I've really tried to make this an apolitical blog. And I think it is. I have not gone on any political rants. I'm not even going to tell you who I'm voting for. That's my business. And the coin's. I'm no political expert, just a regular guy who watches the news when I'm too lazy to change the channel after the Simpsons. And I will be happy when it's all over.

I'm monger187 and I approve this message.
  ¶ monger187 wrote this on 10/26/2004