Last night I attended a presidential debate for third party candidates. The Green, Libertarian, Socialist, and Constitutional Law parties were represented. All of them came across as rational, articulate individuals. None of them seemed like fanatics, although the Constitutional Law candidate's religious beliefs are a few too notches high for my taste. The Socialist party candidate is a former law school professor and a WWII veteran, the Constitutional Law candidate and the Green party candidate are both lawyers, and the Libertarian party candidate is a computer programmer. None of them had any expectation that they could win and were quite honest that they saw their candicacies as an opportunity to bring more attention to their parties' ideologies.

The Libertarian candidate seemed to get the most applause, even more than the Green party candidate, despite the fact that the city has elected Green party mayor's here. It's an expensive college though, and I guess the preppy student body has a different political ideology than the aging hippies who wield political power in the city.

Besides touting their own view points, the candidates also went after Bush and Kerry, pointing out how similar the candidates are. If you want to vote for someone who didn't support the war in Iraq, you don't have a choice in Kerry: both he and John Edwards voted for giving Bush the authority to use force in Iraq. If want someone who is opposed to the Patriot Act, you have no choice: Kerry and Edwards voted in favor of it. Both Kerry and Bush are from wealthy New England families. Both are members of the same secret Yale society: the Skull and Bones. Both are ambiguous on gay marriages: Kerry has said that he supports the concept of marriage remaining between a man and a woman, Bush's vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney is in favor of gay marriage. Neither candidate has a plan to fix social security by the time the Baby Boomer's start retiring. Both Bush and Kerry favor a ban on partial birth abortions. Government spending will increase under both Bush's and Kerry's plan.

I'm voting Libertarian this year. This election is a joke. When push comes to shove, the parties may both talk a different line, but in practice they are both doing the same damn things in office. The reason there wasn't a bigger outrage when the Supreme Court voted Bush in was because there just wasn't enough difference for people to give a crap. We have should have legitimate choices for candidates, not just people who spout slightly different rhetoric.