Who to vote for?

I think Kucinich has the vision, Clark the ability to forge a consensus, and Kerry the experience to implement it.

They are all weak and strong. It is like the chicken and the egg problem. You can’t implement any vision without consensus, but you can’t get consensus without a vision.

I think the future of our democracy depends less on who we choose, and more on what they do after they lose. If they keep campaigning for a democratic victory, and accept defeat with grace, then the democrats will win in November. If they divorce themselves from the body politic (like the greens) and go home and nurse their wounded pride, then Bush will win. In that regard, their actions reflect us. If we demand a perfect candidate, and reject the strength that a candidate offers, then for the lack of perfection the good will be always left wanting.

I would also add that this same grace needs to be granted to the opposite party. Sites like www.townhall.com feast perpetually on partisan hate. Books like Treason and Deliver Us From Evil equate a political choice with an immoral choice. And my friend John Farr does the same with a throwaway line like “George Bush can go to hell (and surely will, anyway),” he is just less long-winded about it.

In the commerce of politics, there is an assumption that everyone is replaceable and expendable, when in fact it should be the opposite: No one is dispensable, including those who we disagree with. The defeat or victory in an election is just a part of a messy process. It is neither a final judgement nor a vindication. In many ways, it is the low point of our politics, rather than its high point. Only then do we hear the constant drumbeat of fear, and the accusation of guilt by innuendo.(Willy Horton) Partisanship robs us all of honor. We cannot attack the honor of somebody else without damaging our own in the process.

The President has had his chance to demonstrate his ability to forge consensus. By all measures, it is a miserable failure. He has even divided our allies, the one area where he had the freest hand to promote his vision. He sees the world as divided, and reaps what he sows. And so do those on the left who attack his honor. A political choice cannot be a moral judgement. That is the slippery slope that the experiment to separate church and state was meant to remove.

So now we must all choose. But the question, as I see it, is, which progressive is the least regressive? Can the Chicken and the Egg meet in the middle of the road?

What are your thoughts? Which vote is wisest?