My Endorsement for President

One week before the election, I have made my decision, which is two-fold. First the easy part:

I am voting against George W. Bush. I appreciate that he stands strong for what he believes in, and I think that is what we needed after 9/11. However, he screwed it up. He failed to capitalize on the world sympathy generated by the WTC attacks. His strategy of pre-emptive strikes might have been embraced if he had stuck to Al Qaeda instead of a dictator with whom we've had past 'grievances'. I don't like the way the reason for invading Iraq has evolved from 'weapons of mass destruction' to 'freeing the Iraqi people', like that was the goal all along. And I'm not convinced the Iraqis are better off then they were before. In some ways they are better off, but in others, they are worse off. I'm not sure Iraqis are ready for democracy, and I think forcing it on them violates the principle of the sovereignty of individual countries. I just can't see the different factions of people who live in the area of land called Iraq coalescing into the kind of country that can maintain a democracy.

As for the harder decision, I am voting for John Kerry. He has gotten the reputation for being long-winded and 'flip-flopping' but the nuts and bolts of the things he has said that have earned him these reputations tell me that he considers all sides of an issue before he makes a decision and will think about new information and consider if his previous decision was wrong. Shouldn't Bush have considered, in light of the discovery of no weapons of mass destruction, that he might admit that invading Iraq probably shouldn't have been that high on the priority list, instead of making up a new excuse?

There are other issues that went into my decision, but that is the most important one. Other benefits of voting for John Kerry, in my opinion, are a balanced Supreme Court, decreased limitations on medical research, and rights of women. I decided to vote for Kerry instead of Badnarik because I think Kerry thinks like I do, namely the way he 'qualifies' his answers, showing that he has considered the other sides and rejected them and why. The other reason is that I checked out election prediction on the Iowa Electronics Market results page. I think voting for John Kerry will best reflect my opinion and my hopes for the results of this election.