dick, regarding "the issues"...please refer to my post of 10 Sep 08 - 01:07 PM

The majority of the American public does not vote on the basis of genuine issues or on the basis of reason. They vote on the basis of vague and very superficial, yet powerful emotional impressions that have precious little (if anything) to do with any of the real issues at hand. They think they're voting with certain issues in mind, all right, but they have simply cherry picked the specific supposed issues that "feel" right to support their pre-existing emotional prejudices.

And thus are elections won and lost.