I've been mulling over how to go about a Bush endorsement piece; Jason Steffans has one up today. For me, it's not much of a hard decision, since there are few policies of the president that I disagree with. He's been a bit timid in pursuing some of his goals and seemingly fearful of expending political capital, but I've agreed with the vast majority of his agenda. Being squishy on stem-cell research isn't enough to get me to head to the Constitution Party and his lack of discipline on domestic spending and those steel tariffs aren't enough to get me to vote Libertarian.
However, there might be a few members of the Peanut Gallery who are less than thrilled with the President and may be considering a protest vote to the right. Let me provide some reasons to back the president as opposed to Messrs Peroutka and Badnarik.
(1) You don't like the UN-If you cast a protest vote and Kerry wins, you'll get American foreign policy taking its clues from Paris, Berlin and Moscow.
(2) You don't like the idea of Justice Larry Tribe-If you cast a protest vote and Kerry wins, the Supreme Court gets even less conservative than it is now. Despite the general claim that its a conservative court, it's 6-3 center-left, if you count Kennedy and O'Connor as centrist. A Kerry win will mean one or more liberal picks on the court, assuming Kerry can get them through a Republican Senate.
(3) You don't like higher taxes-If you cast a protest vote and Kerry wins, Kerry will try to raise them, first on the wealthy, then (when the revenue isn't enough) go after everyone else.
(4) You don't like bigger government-If you cast a protest vote and Kerry wins, the pace of government growth will likely increase. One of your beefs with the president is that he's too liberal on domestic spending; Kerry's going to be better? His health-care plans don't sound like a recipe for smaller government.
That's only a partial list of reasons not to cast a protest vote. If you're in a state that is not in play, you don't have to worry about casting a meaningful vote, but if you're in a swing state, you run the risk of lurching the country away from your values in order to vent your spleen.
Vent your spleen in the comment section, then vote for President Bush next Tuesday (or sooner, if you've got early voting where you're at.
Unless you are assuming that the GOP is going to lose Congress (not likley IMO), then (4) is entirely unsupported by historical precedent.
Posted by: Chip | October 30, 2004 at 06:47 PM