Being home all day is disconcerting now. I haven't spent a weekday home alone since I started working fulltime at the beginning of July. I think Taz is glad she has someone to complain about her hunger to (I put her on a diet).

Maybe if I stayed home all day long again I'd end up posting random bs a dozen times a day like I did as a first-year in college. This feels like my only connection to the rest of the world right now.

I think I'm gonna say something about the upcoming election now because John Kerry's ugly mug is on my tv screen at the moment...Truthfully this is the first election I've really cared about at all in my lifetime. Four years ago I forgot to vote and although I kind of felt like I wanted Bush to win (strangely enough since at the time I thought I was a liberal) I really didn't care that much either way. I was rereading this post from four years ago where I wonder if I should support Nader and then decide against it because I didn't know enough about any candidate to support anyone. Anyway, yeah, basically I was completely clueless and not that interested. The point I'm trying to make is that this feeling of being so committed to one candidate's victory is new to me, and can even be upsetting at times. I let things bother me more than I should. How can anyone honestly support Kerry and his positions, or rather lack of them. How come no one's pointed out the fact that we had a relatively major terrorist attack every two years while their man Clinton was in charge and yet so far since September 11 there hasn't been another major attack on the US. And Kerry wants to go back to Clinton's way of fighting this war...calling it a "law enforcement issue." Actually, Kerry, like Clinton, doesn't know what he wants, all he knows is he wants to be the President of the United States. How can people actually respect this man? Think of him as a great leader? President Bush may not be much of an orator but he can lead and has led us through very difficult times...Blah, I'm just ranting now...not making any sense >< Basically I just feel like if Kerry wins...our country is headed in a direction no responsible citizen should want it to go. And it bothers me that more people don't understand this. It's like that whole stupid draft scare thing. Why does anyone believe that idiocy?? Republicans (unlike Democrats) actually understand how to fight and win wars, which is why no one in the Bush Administration would ever support the re-instatement of the draft, which is why the moron who proposed the bill is a Democrat and the only two idiots who voted for it were also Democrats.

Sigh. Anyway, I know that made no sense, I guess I just feel kind of sad because I'm afraid of what could happen come November and if John Kerry wins I will be really disappointed...Maybe if Bush was up against Gephardt or Lieberman, I'd be less disappointed because at least it would be clear that those on the other side of the aisle get how important national security is and get how it needs to be handled in this day and age....But they nominated Kerry, a man with 20 years in the Senate and no notable legislation with his name behind it...who came home and lied to (oh I'm sorry "misled") the US Senate...lied about his brothers who were still out there risking their lives for their country...who were in enemy POW camps...They want this guy to be President of the United States??? This guy and a freaking trial-lawyer?

One of my coworkers sent me this article and I thought it made some excellent points I hadn't even really considered until now...

In his pre-baked soundbite of the night, Kerry said: "Well, you know, when I talked about the $87 billion, I made a mistake in how I talk about the war. But the President made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is worse?"

Interesting question. The play-by-play pundits thought it brilliant, but I beg to differ. It would have been a better line if he'd said: "But the President's made a mistake in how he's fighting this war. Which is worse?" There may be a majority that thinks post-Saddam Iraq has been screwed up; there's not a clear, exploitable majority that thinks toppling Saddam was a disaster, and Kerry can't build one in the next month.

But it would still have been a lousy line for this reason: "Talking about" stuff is all Kerry's got. He has no executive experience, he has never run a state, never founded a company, built a business, made payroll. Post-Vietnam, all he's done is talk and vote. For 20 years in the US Senate: talk, vote, talk, vote. So, if his talking and voting are wrong, what else is there?

Speaking as a third-rate hack, I'd say that as a general rule articulacy is greatly over-rated. But, if articulacy is the measure, how come Kerry can't articulate an Iraq policy any of us can understand? By contrast, for an inarticulate man, Bush seems to communicate pretty clearly.

He communicates the reality of the September 12th world, a world where you can't afford to err on the side of multilateral consensus and Hague-approved legalisms and transatlantic chit-chatting and tentativeness and faintheartedness about the projection of American power in America's interest. Mr Kerry thinks he can rebuild the polite fictions of September 10.

A majority of the American people - albeit not as big a majority as it ought to be - gets this. John Kerry still does not. Which means he lost the debate. He got a technical win on points from the pundits, but this election won't be won on points. It's primal. The pundits keep missing this.

They thought Kerry was good in the debate, just as he was good in his convention speech, because on both occasions he was tactically artful. But that's not going to cut it. We're post-Clinton: you can't triangulate your way to victory.

God I hope he's right.