John Kerry

Let me return to a refrain that may be familiar to a few of you: the ... ahem... charisma of John Kerry.

Now, please, before you send death threats or offers of free psychoanalysis, understand that there is not one shred of question in my mind that Kerry will be a much better president than Bush. However, Bush is an abnormally low standard upon which to test anything except sheer audacity and fibbing. In my mind, I can literally off the top of my head name at least one hundred people just in politics who would be great improvements over Bush, and some of them are even Republican.

But I wish Kerry were a little less of a fence rider and so careful a man. I find it hard to be passionately for Kerry. I admit, however, that he's not the fresh change I saw in Howard Dean (Dean wasn't perfect, but I preferred him). Nor did I feel passionately for Clinton or Gore.

Yet here's another admission: right now, I suspect it would be very tough to feel as passionately for another candidate as I feel passionately opposed to even the possibility of another term of Bush. Unfortunately, I think probably the majority of the people for Kerry right now are more anti-Bush than pro-Kerry. I'm not sure I like that.

Granted, charisma isn't vital for the presidency.