The Incidental Candidate
Kerrying doubts into the voting booth
So why even my “likely” vote for Kerry? Like all Democratic presidents, he would make better judicial appointments and he would more tightly regulate (yet hardly salvage) the environment (further proof that underneath all the hysteria this is a more routine than historic election). His tax policies would be marginally less regressive. He might not stack federal regulatory boards with quite as many corporate stooges.
On the long-term ills that threaten the republic, I have no faith in Kerry. But I suppose there’s some good in that one candidate — who for whatever reasons — stirs a certain optimism in his followers. It’s not the first time in history, Dr. Dean, that a candidate has been unworthy of his followers. While I don’t share the buoyancy, I can vote for the idea of it. And that’s what I’m reduced to in this closed political system. In what is sold to me as the most crucial election ever, I am voting not for a choice, or a candidate, or a program. I’m voting for a change in mood. It ain’t much.
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