This election season is just hilarious. Both sides are constantly accusing the other side of being undemocratic. Both sides are doing childish things like stealing lawn signs. Both sides are constantly slandering the other side. Both sides are arming their lawyers to fight over the results. Both sides are trying to get their people to vote and stop the other side’s people from voting. Look, folks, if we really all agree that we want a democracy we should lose these constant double-standards. I really believe that most people would rather have their candidate win unfairly than have the other guy win fairly. That is undemocratic. Silencing people’s opinions is undemocratic. Constantly assuming that the other side is cheating is undemocratic. Treating the other side as if they are unpatriotic is undemocratic. In this way Ann Coulter and Michael Moore are equally guilty. Now let’s hear from one right-winger with balls that agrees with this! Let’s stop hating each other over this shit.

I am a Wellstone liberal. I think Paul Wellstone was the last guy with balls in Washington. His book, The Conscience of a Liberal is incredible and a must read for liberals and conservatives alike. I know without a doubt that Paul Wellstone would be supporting John Kerry in this election. While I think Ralph Nader is right on just about everything he says, the math is unforgiving: Ralph Nader is unelectable. I wish that were not the case, but it is. A vote for Nader is a vote for idealism that will give us four more years of the worst president we have ever seen in the history of the United States.

Now I liked John Kerry long before he was running for president. He is extremely smart and he is very good at policy. Some people don’t like that he is a politician and speaks like a politician but we have a government, by definition, made up of politicians. As refreshing as straight talkers like Jesse Ventura may seem at times, they are wildly ineffective in our political system. John Kerry is very good at public policy and will be very good as the American president.

While John Kerry is not half the man that Paul Wellstone was, he is twice the man that George W. Bush is. John Kerry runs from the word “liberal” even as Paul Wellstone embraced it. John Kerry makes decisions with intense political calculation — Paul Wellstone followed his heart and trusted that we would see the political truth behind it. John Kerry has a lot to learn from Paul Wellstone. I hope he does.

John Kerry is the best choice for president because he is a little bit like Paul Wellstone, a little bit like Ralph Nader and almost nothing like George W. Bush. A sincerely hope that the American people reject the politics of fear and embrace the politics of reason.

As much as the Republican/Rove machine wants to spin it otherwise, Bush looked like a fucking idiot in the first debate. He slurred his words, looked like a deer in the headlights, left long uncomfortable pauses, was repetitious and pissy, and in general looked like someone on the defense who was getting hit too hard too often to the point of blacking out. All hail the idiot king!

If these idiots keep saying that Kerry is a flip-flopper and hasn’t articulated his platform, I hope the undecided voters see through these shallow tactics. Over and over this administration seems to think if you say it is true it magically is true. It’s not true of the economy, it’s not true of the Iraq situation and it’s not true of Kerry’s positions. They wildly underestimate the intelligence of the American people and unless you are stubbornly anti-Kerry you can’t be oblivious to their constant spin machine.