Honored GUEST has, on a number of occasions, accused me of being brainwashed or being incapable of thinking "outside the box." First of all, I am not a member of any political party, nor have I ever been. And second, it's a bit difficult to brainwash someone who has followed this business as closely as I have over the past several decades. Because I am not a member of any political party, that does not mean that I don't have a political philosophy. I do. It is what most people would call "liberal" or "progressive" (despite the fact that some people regard those terms as swear words).

I have studied up thoroughly on the candidates—all the candidates—and in the light of my political philosophy and in the light of political reality, I have made my decision. My first choice was Dennis Kucinich, and I voted for him in my precinct caucus. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to make it, I favored Howard Dean. When the thing finally shook out, Kerry was the front-runner. I'm quite sure that if either Kucinich or Dean had become the front-runner, GUEST would be turning his/her vitriol on them.

I will be voting for John Kerry.

This does not mean that I am completely smitten with him. Far from it. But considering the apparent political philosophy of George W. Bush (if, indeed, he has a cohesive political philosophy, but his advisors, e.g., Cheney, Rove, Rice et al certainly do), along with his litany of bad decisions, mistakes, deceptions, and downright impeachable offenses (all far worse that Clinton's little peccadillo, which affected neither the nation nor the world, and resulted in the death of no one), another four years of the Bush administration is simply unacceptable.

There is ample justification for the "anybody but Bush" position.

And anyone who knows anything at all about Kerry—beyond the usual Republican and third-party rhetoric—know that he will be a far more competent president in all areas domestic and foreign than Bush. [By the way, did anyone watch Frontline last week?] And in any case, even if he turns out to be as bad as GUEST tries to make him out to be, he can't possibly be worse than what Bush has been—and if Bush actually gets elected this time, he will undoubtedly regard that as a mandate. If you have the courage, think about that for a while!

Too many people (including former supporters) are angry with Ralph Nader for playing the spoiler yet again, and no one can realistically believe that David Cobb will be elected when very few people have ever even heard of him—and the same goes for Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian Party and Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party, only even more so. No one in his right mind doubts that when the smoke clears and the blood gets mopped up after November 2nd, either John Kerry or George W. Bush will be president-elect of the United States.

Like it or not, the art (or is it "mud-wrestle?") of politics demands compromise. Always has; always will. Sometimes the only reasonable choice is to vote for a front-running candidate you are not particularly enamored with, but who a) has a realistic chance of winning; and b) reflects your political philosophy better than the other front-running candidate. One can refuse to compromise, vote for a candidate who is closer to one's political philosophy than either of the front-runners (even though one reflects it better than the other), and then, while the real bad guy gets elected and the whole world goes down the tubes, sit back and feel smug and self-righteous about one's "uncompromising integrity." But that's small beer. At best, that accomplishes nothing. At worst, it's totally selfish and self-defeating.

Also, like it or not, this is primarily a two-party system. Anyone who seriously believes that there is going to be a great popular movement in which the people will rise up and put either Nader or Cobb into office this election probably also believes in the Great Pumpkin. Not that it can't happen sometime. But when such things are in the offing, they invariably give some indication, and there is certainly no indication that anything like that will occur this time around.

If one is seriously interested in altering the political system in this country, there are two ways to go about it: one is outlined HERE; the other is to join or start a movement to institute Instant Runoff Voting. It wouldn't hurt to do both.

The anger that GUEST exhibits toward those who disagree with him/her reminds me very much of some of the more militant pacifists I met during the Sixties. If you didn't accept every last tenet of non-violence that they espoused, they would be perfectly willing to take you out in the alley and beat the crap out of you.

And speaking of crap, wait 'til after November 2nd. Then we'll see who's full of shit around here.

Don Firth