Until I feel that there is no danger of my government just snatching someone off the street and holding them without charges John Kerry will have my vote come November. However, that will not stop me from pointing out some of the numbskull things he's doing during his campaign. He's making it very difficult for me to maintain my commitment.

You don't tell half a tale and then hold back on naming names in order to keep from betraying a confidence. Once the tale is started you've betrayed that confidence already. What John Kerry has done is just amplified his weasel quotient.

On top of that, whether I agree or disagree with our president, he is still our president until January of 2005 and possibly longer. You don't go making deals with foriegn leaders, or even talk about your ideas for US foreign policy with them while you're running against a sitting president. That's undermining the office of the President.

If I've got to choose the lesser of two evils why can't I have a decent pair of evils to choose between?

I always get nervous when politicians starts labeling themselves a Fiscal Conservative and a Social Liberal, or Progressive or whatever. I haven’t seen one yet that will stop at just allowing an individual personal freedoms and privacy they at some point want to start writing checks to the underprivilidged. You can’t be free spending with tax dollars and be a fiscal conservative. That’s called being a fiscal liberal. It doesn’t matter if you want to open up the public coffers to the poor or to big business if you are suggesting that be done you are not a fiscal conservative.

Now you may be asking, “What brought this up, Larry?” Well, I’ll tell you. It’s this Howard Dean fellow. It seems that most of my online buddies are enamored with this fellow so I thought I’d give him a look-see. I was impressed by most of what I saw on his website and he also has a weblog that I’ve been following for a couple of days now. I agree with most of what he says but I’m bothered a little by his universal health care plans.

I like his goals but it seems that he wants to achieve them by relying heavily upon the Medicaid program, a program that has been hemorrhaging money badly for the past umpteen years. I can’t tell where he is suggesting to fix this program first and it seems that he wants to expand it, not by raising taxes, but by just foregoing the Bush tax cuts.

Okay, he must have some plan figured out to stimulate the economy so that it grows enough that taxes collected will be more than enough to balance the budget and pay for expanding the Medicaid system, so I click on over to his Fiscal Responsiblity page. Imagine my surprise when I see the message essentially saying, “Let me get back to you on this one.”

Okay, a friend of mine points out that he’s actually only been a candidate since June 23^rd but he’s had to have had desires for this job for a lot, lot longer and he’s been govenor of Vermont for forever. Surely he’s got at least a framework in place in how to pay for all these wonderful programs he’s suggesting. At least more of a framework than just not cut taxes like Dubya wants. He seems to have everything else figured out.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I may well vote for this man. He’s said things that I like a heck of a lot more than any other Democrat in the race and he may come through with an economic plan that I find doable and fair to rich and poor alike. I’m not dismissing him right yet because so far it’s either him or Bush. All I’m saying is that he isn’t the fiscal conservative he’d like for us to believe no matter what he says about a balanced budget. Yeah, he’s done great things in Vermont but the US isn’t Vermont.

This next year is going to be interesting to watch.

While I’m not as unhappy with President George W. Bush as many of my peers are there are some things about this presidency that I’m still uneasy with. I like tax cuts as much as the next guy but I’m more intrigued with true government spending cuts. You know, where they spend fewer total dollars this year than they did last? I don’t like the way that I feel uncomfortable carrying my beloved pocket knives with me any more because I might find myself somewhere where they will be confiscated. I also don’t much care for the fact that visitors to this country may no longer have the same rights to due process as citizens and permanent residents of this country enjoy. So given a better alternative next year I’ll be voting for it.

Dean may become that better alternative. It’s way too early for me to jump on someone’s band wagon but I will be watching this campaign very closely. Dean may be the Democrat who doesn’t cause me to roll my eyes.

The one thing that will inform me more about Dean that most other candidates is that the Dean campaign is operating a weblog that has an RSS feed. I can sort of keep up with the campaign using SharpReader. I like that.