Extreme pessimism

Doug Thompson, publisher of Capitol Hill Blue, was feeling pretty pessimistic a couple of weeks ago. To some degree, what he has to say resonates with me:

So where does this [what we learned from the three Bush-Kerry debates] leave those of us who need to make a decision between now and Election Day? Feeling like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis. We know we?ve got a problem but the system we believe in won?t let us solve it.

Obviously, a political system that left us with these two lackluster pretenders is flawed and must be fixed. But how? Where do we start? How do we correct a system that delivers such riff-raff to the election process?

But I'm not to the point of agreeing with his conclusion &mdash not yet, at least — even though I must admit, if a band wagon started rolling, I probably wouldn't be too long in jumping on:

When adherence to a political position replaces loyalty to your country and party dogma replaces the Constitution, it is time for a change.

I?m not talking about changes to a party structure or amendments to a political system but substantial change to a system of government that no longer serves the people. One only has to look at the gridlock in Congress, the absence of truth and honor in the White House and the American public?s deteriorating belief in our elected leadership to know that what we have now ain?t working.

But change — real change — won?t come at the ballot box. We can?t change a thing when our choices are George W. Bush or John F. Kerry. We also can?t change it by throwing our votes away on Ralph Nader or any other fringe candidate.

Instead, we have to rethink what we — as Americans — must do to save our country.

It took a revolution to create a place called America.

It may take another one to restore it.

Despite my partial sympathies with this rant, for the first time in a long time I'm going to vote for one of the two mainstream candidates. Voting for third-party candidates or even prominent people who have not run for President has been my form of protest against "lackluster" choices. But Bush scares me so badly I'm definitely going to vote for John Kerry, though without great enthusiasm. What a sad political landscape we face in the U.S.