Politics

The general election is just over four months away. It's time to decide who to vote for. But what should be my basis for making the decision?

For example, should I vote for the person that I feel most closely shares my own political opinions? If so, then that would mean that I am actually the best candidate for President - soda in all the drinking fountains!

Should my vote go to the candidate who has the most experience? . . . experience doing what?

Should my vote go to the candidate that would offer the most balance to the 3-branch system? If so, who would that even be (as it stands now the Congress leans "liberal" and the Supreme Court leans "conservative")?

Trying to sort this all out is quite a task. So I decided to check out both party's platforms,which are viewable online at each party's official website. The Democratic Party's platform is 43 pages long and the Republican Party's platform is 92 pages long. So I guess the Republican's have twice as many good ideas - now I'm getting somewhere! Wait, correction: I just discovered that by removing the references to 9/11 from the Republican's platform, it is now only about 3 pages long. And by removing the references to President Bush's failures from the Democrat's platform it is also only about 3 pages long.

Here is the direction I'd like to see the U.S./world move in:

• end the Iraq War (but have Iraq thrive as a peaceful country without us there)
• no more terrorist attacks globally
• lower health care costs (but higher quality health care, of course)
• Jazz win NBA championship
• higher standard of living for all nations

Not in that order.

Both Party's platforms are so rhetorical, vague, and boring I couldn't really make any sense of them. I even tried to pick a specific issue, for example, health care, to try to compare the platforms against each other. Here's what I got:

Republicans Platform:

"We must attack the root causes of high health care costs by: aiding small businesses in offering health care to their employees; empowering the self-employed through access to affordable coverage; putting patients and doctors in charge of medical decisions; reducing junk lawsuits and limiting punitive damage awards that raise the cost of health care; and seizing the cost-saving and quality-enhancing potential of emerging health technologies. It is also important that we reaffirm our Party’s firm rejection of any measure aimed at making health care a government-run enterprise."

Democrats Platform:

"We believe not just that a strong America begins at home, but that a strong America begins in the home. And just as government's first responsibility is the health and safety of its people, parents' first responsibility is the health and safety of their children. We believe that health care is a right and not a privilege. At the center of our efforts will be a plan to reduce health costs. We will lift a financial burden on families, businesses, and the self-employed by picking up the tab for the highest-cost medical cases."

I find myself thinking "good point" while reading both of them.

At my core, I want a President to be a fiscal conservative but a social liberal. Let people live how they want, help (don't bail out) the poor with health care needs and education, move aggressively towards energy autonomy, but don't raise taxes to make that all happen - just stop spending money on inneficient or unnecessary programs.

So, who knows who I'll end up voting for . . . I may just write-in myself. Whoever wins, it will be a change and I'm looking forward to it.

http://www.gop.com/images/2004platform.pdf
http://www.democrats.org/pdfs/2004platform.pdf
http://www.lp.org/platform (I actually really like the Libertarian stuff)