John Kerry, what is he good for?

First, the disclaimer. I did not watch John Kerry's address at the DNC, save for a few brief stays as I flipped through channels, and some of the post-speech commentary and analysis as I waited to see if The Simpsons would begin.

That said, I think I'm really glad I didn't play the John Kerry drinking game, where you take a drink every time he invokes his military record. One, I didn't have nearly enough alcohol on hand for it (three bottles of beer, a bottle of champagne and two bottles of German wine). Two, I need to be not hungover so I can go to work tomorrow.

In the snippets of his speech I caught, he invoked his military record. I'm fairly certain that these random samples reflected the speech as a whole, though I hope he didn't devote it entirely to the military thing.

Evidently, according to U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), this address was to be Kerry's big sell for why people should want to vote for him, as opposed to against Bush.

And, well, I'm not sure this speech gave any compelling reasons. Opening by saying "John Kerry, reporting for duty" doesn't exactly distinguish from Dubya. More to the point, it seems simply to emphasize one of the very crucial reasons why I think George W. Bush belongs in the dock at the ICJ. So I'm not following how this makes me think John Kerry is better, or affirming.

It's just odd, convoluted logic. Bush is the war president. People didn't like the war. So I'm going to position myself as the new war president. Not so much.

And it's really, really sad. Absolutely I should vote, in the words of Ron Reagan, for the candidate with the best chance to defeat George W. Bush. But you really, really need to throw me a bone on this one. Give me some incentive to decide that Kerry's that much better, that he has enough a backbone to fight forr things that really matter to me. Because I'm not seeing it.

I can't decide what would be worse: four more years of Bush, or a Kerry presidency that saw him so eager to woo moderates, centrists and conservatives that he does all he can to avoid the mantle of liberalism by running away from it. Because I really fear that it could almost be worse under a Democrat. In the long term, at least. If you have a nominally liberal president under enormous pressure from the right to betray his left leanings, you're essentially going to end up with a situation in which nothing remotely liberal gets done and the whole agenda of liberalism gets further degraded to the point at which it's dead. Or maybe it already is dead. See Bill Clinton. "New" Democrats have brought a lot of this on themselves, I think. They became so obsessed with gaining power that they were willing to seek it at any cost, damn the policies. I see John Kerry as continuing this trend.

Perhaps I'm hopelessly idealistic. But then, I don't know that power's worth much if you don't use it for anything worthwhile.

So I remain deeply conflicted, perhaps even more so than before. I still haven't decided whether I'll vote for Kerry or if I'll even vote at all. I do know that I really hope Ralph Nader is on the ballot wherever I vote, because I like having him as a choice. I know what I'm getting with Ralph, I agree with him, I can feel pretty good with myself for voting for him. Granted, I wish I had a better sense of what Ralph's trying to do this time around, wish he had a more clearly articulated agenda, wish he injected some of the much needed new thinking he offered in 2000, wish he had won the Green Party nomination. But having Ralph -- mixed up and all -- on the ballot is a good thing. Good for democracy, good for the country.

Still, it doesn't help me decide if I should vote for Kerry and hope for a benign (or less malignant) administration, or if it's worth bothering with the process at all. John Kerry just doesn't make it easy for me to choose.

Plus, I'm a bit bitter at Kerry at the moment because his speech preempted The Simpsons. D'oh!