Several years ago, the Louisiana governorship was contested between the corrupt and discredited former Governor Edwin Edwards and former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke.

That year marked the high point of my participation in the electoral process; I spent election day working out of Edwards headquarters, ferrying elderly and indigent registered Democrats from their homes to their local polling places.

The operative slogan for that election was "Hold Nose, Pick Edwards." The most popular bumpersticker read "Vote for the Crook -- It's Important."

I feel that this presidential election is similar, insofar as the "lesser of two evils" is *so* much more desirable than the unspeakable alternative. I harbor no illusions about the Democratic Party as part of the same entrenched establishment as the Republicans, but the so-called "neoconservative" bunch currently in control of the government (Orwellian neofascists, to my thinking) have simply GOT to go.

I'll save my efforts to encourage the growth of a more ideal progressive movement for other years, and for other (local) elections this year. It's not *always* important which major-party candidate prevails in a given election -- in fact, I'll grant that it usually makes little or no difference -- but this time around, I'm really concerned about WHO ACTUALLY WINS, and who controls the Executive Branch for the next four years, than I am about any long-term ideals.