I live in California. Which is firmly Democrat and will be a Kerry state. Bush doesn't campaign here. He raises money and then flies off to Ohio and other swing states to try and win re-election. So while my vote will only ensure a Kerry victory in the state, I think it's important to try and convince whoever I can, particularly in swing states, to vote for Kerry instead of Bush.
So I got to thinking, why would someone vote for Bush? I came up with some reasons and some rebuttals. I've probably missed a few, but I think I got the major ones.
Fiscal conservatism: You are being misled. Republican administrations talk about small government but then spend on a blank check basis. Bush has turned a surplus into record deficits in his four years. It's true that the economy was already dropping when Bush came into office, but his questionable economic policies have done little to create a turnaround and have cost the government billions. What will he do in the next four years when he knows that his administration has no chance at re-election and he can govern at will?
Strong military: The true war on terrorism is an asymmetric fight where traditional military might is not appropriate. The last Democratic administration focused on intelligently using the money to build a more advanced force and it has proven a wise course.
Issues like prayer in the schools or abortion: These are local issues, opinions vary widely by region, and while the help of the President is important you will have a larger impact on these issues with your votes in the House, Senate and in the local races. The President has specific powers and you have to think of your vote in that context. If you have any doubts at all about the war in Iraq you should judge your vote for President on that basis.
Supporting our troops in the field: Both of the candidates will most likely bring a sensible end to the war in Iraq and bring the troops home. The question is, do you want to keep your trust in the current administration, the same administration that got us into the current problems in Iraq? Or one who will take the fight to our legitimate enemy, Al Qaeda, who has only gotten more support from our invasion of Iraq.
Same sex marriage: Again, this is mainly a local issue. You could argue that you need a President to get an amendment. But how likely is that with a 50/50 House and Senate? The current crop of Democrats are moderates. They won't be legalizing gay marriage across the country. So while you won't get an amendment, which you probably won't get even with a second Bush term, you will not get legalized gay marriage with the Democrats either.
Switching horses midstream: There is a war on. Shouldn't we be patriotic and support the president in this time of national crisis? If that were the case every President looking for re-election would declare war in the fourth year of his term. We have to be critical now more than ever because we are choosing whether we want him to lead us for another four years. Was it the right decision to go to war? Only those on the extreme far right consider the case for war to be without fault. Do we have a good plan for getting out? Not from the start, and the administration hasn't come up with any clear plan to date. Now we are depending on the U.N., once the enemy of progress, to bail us out. Is he a good commander-in-chief? He certainly looks good a in flight suit. But has he ever fought? No. Have Cheney, Rumsfeld, or Wolfowitz fought? No. Most of the men behind the war have never fought. They are Chickenhawks (people who call for war but have never served.) Kerry served with distinction. If anyone understands the imperative of getting the job done and getting the troops home, it is him.
This coming election will be about the war. If you firmly believe that we were right to go to war, that there were weapons of mass destruction, and that Saddam had direct links to Al Qaeda, then vote for Bush. If you want to get out of the war, and get back to pursuing the murderers in Al Qaeda with no hidden agenda, vote for Kerry.
Posted by jherr at April 23, 2004 08:33 AMEven though I don't have time to address all of your points (as with quagmire etc...) I feel compelled to respond.
Please address:
Moral Clarity
Long Term Vision - Fortitude
Character
You make very good points, and I have disagreed with several of Bush's policies, just for the record.
Moral clarity? I'm not sure what that means. If you mean pro-abortion or anti-life. I'm not sure. Abortion is, rightly so, an extremely contentious issue. It really comes down to one issue; who will sit on the court and what do they think about Roe. It's a two-fold problem, justices wait around for the right political time to depart, and on the other hand the judicial nomination process has become so politicized that the next justice will most likely be a moderate. Either way, presidents can pick 'wrong', by which I mean that justices picked to go on the 'right' or 'left' have often ended up on the 'wrong' side of the debate.
Long term vision. Again, not quite sure what that means. What I can say is that Bush hasn't done very well following through on things. The deadline for transfer of control was pushed well forward for political reasons. The war in Afghanistan has been neglected. We only have 5% of our troops dedicated to the war on terror in Afghanistan, which is largely only in coalition control in and around Khabul, outside of the cities it's controlled by warlords and opium dealers (which were suppressed under the Taliban but have come back with a vengeance under the Kharzi government.) When it comes to Kerry, he has had a lot more public service, and that government service has truly been public and on the record. Unlike George Bush who had all of his gubernatorial records sealed in his fathers Presidential library when he took office.
Character: Let's divide and conquer;
Military service: Kerry served in the war in Vietnam. Bush ducked service and it's not really clear if he ever showed up for his national guard duty. His cabinet is also full of Chickehawks (Rumsfield, Wolfowitz, Cheney, etc.) The only legitimate soldier in the current administration, Powell, has been all but removed from any power in the administration and serves only as a figurehead.
Honesty: Kerry isn't suffering on the honesty front. Bush is suffering from a credibility gap and both the public and the press are realizing that the administration is retracting his public statements shortly after he makes them. For example the mustard gas on the turkey farm turned out to be a smaller amount of other weapons spread throughout the country, with nothing but empty shells at the farm itself. Is he lying? Or does he just not know what he is talking about. Pick your poison, because either way it's bad news.
Waffling: Kerry is getting hammered on this front by Karl Rove's dogs of war. While he may have waffled the cited votes are often very complex requiring multiple votes on multiple drafts, so while he may vote yes once he may vote no another time because the content has changed. One has to question the integrity of the observer who would overlook the complexity of the voting record to make blanket statements like 'he is a waffler'. As to Bush, his policy record as Governor was, well, who knows what his policy record as Governor was because he had 23 palettes of official documents sealed from public record (an unprecedented move) when he became the President-elect. As for his record as President, one could argue that he has been too rigid. For example, the exclusion of Baath party officials from the government in Iraq, was long in standing but only recently retracted. If he had listened it should have been done sooner. Another example is his support of American Steel workers, where he gave them tariffs early on he waffled and removed them later. Any reasonable economist would have said they should be there in the first place.
I'm not saying that Kerry is perfect. What I can say is that while we have been dealing with an artificially created war in Iraq, al Qaeda has been gaining in strength both because of our neglect of them and because of our actions in Iraq. If you want to deal with the real al Qeada threat then you should vote Kerry. He has no hidden agenda on Iraq and well get us out of there as soon as reasonably possible. Then he will get us back into the real war on terror against al Qaeda.
Posted by: Jack Herrington at April 23, 2004 01:19 PMOh, Bush has the moral clarity thing down, alright. He's absolutely sure that he's right, to the point of not needing any supporting evidence for his beliefs. The other guy, whats-his-name, changes his opinions when presented with updated data. Waffler!
What worries me is that my parents from Oklahoma refuse to watch anything other than Fox news. You know, the one that didn't show the reverent, breathtaking coffin photos because George doesn't want us to see them. They still don't know who Valerie Plame Wilson is, even though Josh Marshall etc. have been on that since last July. They think Iraqis were on the planes. And they're registered.
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