WHY I’M VOTING FOR KERRY a vote for Bush is insane...

I was asked last night by a sales clerk why I was voting for Kerry. I had intended to write about this a while ago but never did. And now that the election is only a week away, I’m not sure it matters that much. But I want to do it anyway, because the quickest thing I could come up with last night was “Because he didn’t lie us into a war with Iraq.” Not that it really mattered if I had a convincing argument in this particular encounter–the clerk was not registered to vote.

The Reasons Bush Must Go

1. Bush isn’t really the President. He lost the popular vote in 2000 but won Bush v. Gore which stopped the counting of votes in Florida. So he “won” by having vote-counting stopped.

2. And despite the circumstances of his ascension to power, he proceeded to govern as though he’d won by a landslide.

3. During his time in office, the country has experienced the worst job loss since Herbert Hoover.
During the Clinton years, job growth averaged 239,000 jobs per month but in Bush’s first 2 ½ years, jobs decreased by an average of 69,000 per month.

4. His precious and gigantic tax cuts ate up the record surplus and turned it into a record deficit.

5. He ignored very clear warnings about terrorists wanting to attack inside the U.S. and failed to prevent 9/11.

6. He then used 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, greatly exaggerating the severity of the threat Iraq posed to the U.S. Which is to say, Iraq threatened the U.S. not at all and had no WMD, a fact the Bush administration was aware of before the invasion.

7. The USA Patriot Act.

8. The fact that he’s a spoiled rich kid whose father was president and that he ascended to the presidency despite losing the election makes everything he says and does that much harder to take.

9. He avoided combat service during Vietnam then stands and refuses to condemn those who viciously attack his opponents who were in combat (i.e., McCain, Kerry).

10. He thinks God wants him in power.

11. He supports an amendment to the constitution that would outlaw gay marriage.

12. He says he doesn’t read the news and acts as though he has all the answers.

13. The number of people living in poverty and without health insurance has steadily risen every year Bush has been in office.



Why I Will Vote For John Kerry

1. He has dedicated his whole adult life to public service.

2. He has experienced combat (not that I think this is a requirement in a president, but it doesn’t hurt).

3. He is genuinely thoughtful, articulate, compassionate, and intelligent.

4. He is a published author.

5. He is a serious individual who tries to see all sides to a problem.

7. His actions helped bring about an end to the Vietnam War.

8. He won’t privatize Social Security and won’t appoint any Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade.

9. He will bring allies to the table in the “war on terror” instead of going it alone and alienating the rest of the world.

10. He will close tax incentives that encourage businesses to outsource jobs to foreign countries.

11. He acknowledges that the situation in Iraq is not good and that the deficit is a problem rather than insisting that all is well like Bush does.

12. He will govern with moderation and make decisions in deliberate manner after discovering all the relevant facts, rather than wanting an outcome and skewing or obscuring the available facts to achieve that outcome.

I would like to link to all this stuff, but it's late and I'm tired. A lot of the anti-Bush stuff can be found in "The Book On Bush," a great resource. Some of the other stuff is just taking Kerry at his word, but as of this writing I have no reason not to do so.

Also, I will be tempted to add to the list as the week goes by.

Stolen Signs

Weekend before last, I had Kerry signs stolen out of my yard on Friday and Saturday nights. I followed the bastards on Saturday night and got a license plate number, but the cops didn't do anything. I had another sign stolen during the next week. I've got another one up now and keep peeking out my window to see if the terrorist thugs are coming back.