I've started to hear a few people around here talking about writing in either another Democrat, or going 3rd party, or not voting at all if some person, usually Hillary, gets the nomination. Let me make this as clear as I possibly can to those people: If you really want to see the day when the United States can elect a President with politics like Kucinich's, for instance, then four more years of Republican rule is the worst thing that could possibly happen to your agenda. Another four years of the Republicans using that bully pulpit of the Presidency to drive the country as far to the right as they possibly can is not going to help us. It's not going to help you. It's going to hurt the progressive cause, not to mention the shambles it will make of any kind of effort for change that originates in congress.

In 2000 I voted for Al Gore, even though at the time I didn't really like him. I did this over the strenuous objections of some of my friends who said that there was no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, and that I should vote for Nader because his policies most closely matched my own views. Those people were wrong. And I would like to think that the evidence of the last seven years would be enough to convince everyone of that, but maybe it's not.

I'm not going to vote for Rudy Giuliani. And I'm certainly not going to do effectively the same thing by going third party or writing in my favorite just because I don't like Hillary (or whoever) or their policies because, in the immortal words of Our Leader Who Done Tells It Like It Is, "Fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me can't get fooled again."