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03/17/2004 Entry: "The Green Liberepublicrat Party" Happy Saint Patty's day, everyone! I'm not Irish, I'm Swedish, but we drink too, only we're real quiet about it (joke stolen from Brett Butler). Today got me thinking about voting, because I'm voting for Irish descended John Kerry, current Senator from Massachusetts. Even if he is Catholic. I am a registered Democrat, only because I end up voting for a lot of them, but I am not a party-centric person. I am one of the losers who voted for Perot, for instance. If John McCain ran instead of George Bush, I would have voted for him, even though he's a Republican. I don't choose many Libertarians or people from the Green Party, for instance, because they have a lot of nut jobs, or "Carter-like" candidates (high on intellect, low on political savvy, although I think Carter is the best ex-President we've ever had). My father was and still is very Democrat, which is my "warning flag" about that party. I might have been more Democrat, but the fact it attracted people like my father made me very wary. I decided at one point to look back at the 20th century, to see how the presidential picks have been. The only Republican I liked was Teddy Roosevelt, and considering more than half of the other Republicans were people I actually couldn't stand since then (esp Taft, Coolidge, Hoover, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr.) has made me very wary of them. As for Democrats, we have great names like FDR, Truman, and Kennedy. Clinton was okay, I just wished his personal life wasn't so invading, but that also haunted Kennedy. Wilson and Carter were, IMHO, too smart for the job. Wilson is the only president to have had a PhD, for instance. But being president is more than just having a good idea, it's a lot of things. Here's what I consider an ideal president: - Hard working. Must show proof they follow through with promises. - Compassionate. Must show they care about everyone, even people they don't like. - Diplomatic. Must be able to play nice with others and deal with difficult situations with people they don't fully understand. - Intelligent. Must have a clue about what they are doing, and have plans for keeping everything going for the best of the country and its citizens. - Wise or "street smart." They must not be easily fooled. - Honest. Ha ha, I know. Well, no candidate I ever voted for had all of those. Some only had a few, but it's like selective breeding, you have to keep voting for the lesser of the two evils until you finally get a candidate you like. Many people don't vote because they don't think it makes a difference, or they hate who's running. But a no vote is really a vote for the person whom you like the least, too. I voted for Gore 2000, even though I didn't think he was very street smart or diplomatic. I only knew Bush Jr. had NONE of those qualities, and the fact that he won was really alarming. How he won was even worse. My only hope is that the American people vote him out of office, and Nader doesn't split the vote. I have very little confidence in the current administration, and I think the repercussions of what they are doing will be dire. History shall look on this as badly as they did on Herbert Hoover's administration, I am sure.