Cary,
I am not sure if there will even be a NONE OF THE ABOVE area to check on a national election ballot. And again I think this falls into the "not voting at all " catagory for you are in fact not casting a vote for anyone. If there is a catagory for that kind of vote I am sure it will be noted on Comedy Central and other such networks. Yet unless the NONE OF THE ABOVE number is huge, which I would wager 100% of my retirement income that it wont be larger than 1%, then it will be ignored by all parties and politicians.
I wish I could offer a solution to your dilema. I too wish candidates could be more forthcoming as to what their agends areally are. But agendas don't really make much difference in the long run because events tend to dictate the current agenda. Right now candidates have a pretty easy time with economic issues because the overall economic situation is pretty good.
I think that the current pantheon of Presidential wannabies is quite varried. Of course as time goes on and the money runs out the wierdos drop away. Forbes won't drop because it's his money and what the hell else is he gonna waste his time at? The three that will go the distance are Gore, Bush, McCain, Bradley. If you just look atr the money then Bush is the winner because he has the bucks. But I beleive Bush won't win shit because...well...the guy just isn't that likeable a person. He looks, acts, and talks like his daddy but has none of his daddy's freindliness and that, I hope, is saying a lot.
Gore might win just because the voters are so damned lazy and want to believe that him and Bubba are responsible for the current state of economic affairs, which of course they are not. IF it is Gore vs. Bush then Gore is going to win. If however it is Gore vs. McCain then I think that Gore is outta there. McCain can talk better than Gore, is more animated than Gore; this isn't saying much since the Pirates of the Caribean are more animated than Gore.
Bradley is too dumpy looking to be President. I am sorry but appearance coutns too damn much these days. His ideas aren't bad, I am all for a better healthcare system. But unless he's..I don't know...God or somebody like that he's nothing but a monkey fucking a football. The Healthcare industry is still too powerful to allow any real reform. Let the class action suits come against the HMO's and see what the fall out is going to be over that. Besides the solution will have to come from the ground up, fromhe people getting screwd over. A President has to simply wait in the wings and charge in after the problem is solved by the people. And that is okay since the people usually come up with good solutions.
Of all the dudes running McCain is the only that comes accross as a regular guy. I like his humor, I like the fact that he takes politcally risky stances on issues. He has as much as said that he wants to reform the Republican party and doesn't think much of the narrow minded conservatives that have tried, in vain ha ha ha, to keep him off some states ballots, like NY. The guy is running against the dolts in office and at the same time against enemies in his own party. And still he is going at it. In the early 1900's the Democrats were the party of the old south, they were reationary, biggots that supported Jim Crow laws and poll taxes to keep blacks from voting. They didn't want women to vote. What happened to them? Franklin Roosevelt that's what happened to them. Here is a guy who wanted to run as a republican in NY but was told that he'd be slaughtered so he registered as a Democrat. It was from his time on that the Democrats went ass over tea kettle from reactionary biggots to lefty's demanding the end to segregation and the implementation of Affirmative action. This is of course grossly simplifiying a complicated set of circumstances but there you go. I am not saying that John McCain will be another FDR. I am saying that if a candidate can win in McCain's position it shows remarkable political skill on his part. The Ronald Regan annalogy also springs to mind.
Now ol' Ron is not doing to well but hell he was Pres so I don't feel ashamed of saying that the guy sucked. But his campaign was also not given much chance early on either. It was personal power that he eminated that got his machine working. It wast spin or money it was his own desire and determination. In the end that is what gets people elected. Clinton was the same way, however with him he took window dressing to a knew height. I fell fot it. But I am not falling for false shit this time. I have determined that I have to look at the guy's actions, past and present, to see if he has my vote. How does he react when the ckips are down? What's he done with his life? McCain is not a movie star, he isn't slick. He thinks the defense budget is too big and there are too many wastful programs in it. He, at the very least, is talking about campaign finance reform.
I think that if I had paid a little more attention to what Bubba had done in his past life I would have htought twice about voting for him. Howeve I glossed it over as "ancient history" forgetting the fundemental truth that the present is built on the past. How a man acts when he is twenty or thirty goes a long way toward tellling me how he will act now. If he was a back stabbing political opportunist when he was young I doubt if he has under gone any soul altering since then. Beware a polotician that tells you he is so sorry about what he did to his wife and family when he was younger.
I hope you actually vote for a real person. YOu have to big of a brain to let it spill it's cyber seed on rocky ground.