Why I Am Voting for John Kerry

I marched in George W. Bush’s inauguration parade. I hadn’t voted for him, and had hoped he wouldn’t win, but as we marched past the reviewing stand I snuck a peek at him and suddenly didn’t feel so horrible about having him as President. It’s incredibly shallow to admit such a thing, but just seeing him in person made me feel a little better about George Bush. He seemed—and still seems—like a Nice Guy™.

Even nice guys make mistakes, though, and the Bush admistration has made mistake after mistake since that cold January day nearly four years ago. From failing to fully fund the well-intentioned No Child Left Behind Act to not properly supporting the troops he sent to Iraq, the Bush White House has demonstrated incompetence at almost every turn.

Even more disturbing to me than Bush’s incompetence is the utter disdain he and his staff seem to hold for the environment. Euphemistically-named programs like Clear Skies and Healthy Forests serve only to promote the interests of coal, logging, and other industries bent on subverting nature to their own needs. “Acceptable” levels of mercury and other poisons have been redefined to save offending companies the cost of upgrading their facilities to safe standards. Damage done in the past four years to the long-term health of Americans and the environment will still exist for decades to come.

I can’t say for sure what kind of President John Kerry will make. No one can know how one of the most stressful jobs in the world will affect someone, and that is one of the chances that this country takes when it elects a new President. I do know that it has happened 42 times in our nation’s history, and we’re still here.

I also know that John Kerry has an idea of what has gone wrong during the past four years, and that he has an idea of what has to begin to happen to set this country back on the right track. George Bush has made too many mistakes to justify a second term. John Kerry can do better.

October 31, 2004 - 08:08 PM