Voting/Playing the man

I wrote this as a comment on Wayne at commentary.co.za's endorsement of Kerry, and since it went on a bit, I figured I might as well pretend to know about politics and the US elections on my web log too.

Although I fall firmly into the left-liberal area, I'd certainly not be happy to be voting for John Kerry, if I were voting for a man. I'd be even more unhappy to vote Bush if I were voting for a man, but that's another story.

I had been avoiding US election blogs, as the majority of them just believe what the rest of their side does. The explosives case being one - Republican/Bush supporters latched onto the "taken before" story as the truth, and Dems/anti-Bush supporters jumped onto the "pictures proving they were still there" story. But, as the endorsements started coming in, I figured I'd take the effort to find out what people are saying. (After all, South African politics hardly ever gets this level of contemplation and thought.)

That no-one at all likes Kerry the man as president may be exaggerating, but it's certainly popular not to. However, one thing that's coming through is that for America's future, a Democrat victory this year might be for the best, even if it means choosing Kerry.

A big concern to me is the religious right's unearned power in the Republican party at the moment. Justice Scalia (and Thomas too, I've heard), while having some good points about the nature of the Supreme Court, doesn't seem to consider it a problem that he's just as guilty of bringing his religion into his "interpretation" of the constitution, and doesn't fill me with the feeling he wouldn't abuse his position if he thought he'd get away with it. With three chairs potentially opening in the next four years, and Bush's expressed preference for the more extreme-right judges such as Scalia and Thomas, I'd be a bit worried. That the "liberal" "activist" judges are primarily Republican candidates does speak to the shift towards the religious right's influence on Republican social values.

Andrew Sullivan and others have mentioned that it's most likely that should the Democrats win the presidency, the Republicans will almost certainly win congress. Such a split would hopefully prevent the excesses that both candidates/parties are likely to attempt. But there's no such safety net in the Bush victory case.

And finally, like Andrew Sullivan (gah, agreeing with him is such a painful thing sometimes), I think it would be good for the Democrats in getting some ownership of the "war on terror". There's no quick route out of Iraq, and no president will consider any major step down from the current footing. No Republican is going to complain about the "war on terror", and as the Democrat president is forced to (although, hopefully willingly) take a role, pointless partisan pot-shots should hopefully lessen, and can be transformed to a more positive accountability.

Now if only I could take Kerry's latest strong stance in reply to the OBL tape as what he'd be doing. For while I still think the timing and approach on Iraq was wrong, the intention of the "war on terror" is in the right place.