Told my millionaire uncle yesterday that I was probably voting for Kerry. I haven't told my dad — who probably thinks I'm some crazy leftist anyways — and I'm going to try and slink out of here without getting mired in an unproductive political debate.

My uncle, a Republican, was a bit taken aback by my decision. I gladly pointed out that my vote, cast as a resident of Wisconsin, will be worth much more than his Minnesotan vote, which will be rendered void by the winner-take-all nature of the electoral college. Plus I think I get to vote for Feingold, the next best thing to voting for McCain.

But it's been a tough choice. Remember: I was in favor of the war in Iraq, not because there could have been WMD, but for long-term humanitarian reasons — not to mention our historical debt to all the Kurds that Saddam killed after Bush Sr. decided it wasn't politically wise to enter Baghdad and oust the dictator.

I don't like the way we went about waging the war (though I can't honestly imagine a scenario where Germany or France would have sent troops to Iraq) and I was disappointed with the way we handled the postwar. The official reasons for going turned out to be just as stupid as Bush's private reasons, but at least we went.

Now if the U.S. would only start paying attention to Africa…

But I'm getting off topic, ranting like a neocon. Bush convinced the party that opposed all of Clinton's military operations to go and take out some of the trash abroad. I don't think that what he did was wrong, and I have as little respect for protesters who cast Bush or Cheney as mustache-twirling villains as I did for my father when he called Gore "evil" in 2000.

So I don't have the big reason for opposing Bush that everyone else does. John Kerry voted for the war, of course, and says he would again even without hints of WMD. But I don't believe that he would have, and I don't think the delegates in Boston (86% of whom opposed the war) did either.

Instead of unthinkingly backing the sandwich in Bush vs. Sandwich, I find myself in the odd position of actually having to evaluate Bush vs. Kerry. As has been pointed out already, both candidates have similar stances on most of the issues I consider important.

I can't even vote Republican as a fiscal conservative, what with all the money Bush is spending. It's frustrating.

In the end, because the candidates are sooooo similar, I think I'll probably vote for Kerry for only one reason. It's enough to make me not want to vote at all.

#1. Kerry isn't a member of the Religious Right.

It's a stupid justification. But you can't pin Bush's support for the gay marriage amendment on Cheney, who seems to side with his lesbian daughter on this one. And even though I think that Kerry's views on abortion should get him excommunicated, Bush's halting attempts at theocracy remind me of a Flannery O'Connor quote:

To a lot of Protestants I know, monks and nuns are fanatics, none greater. And to a lot of monks and nuns I know, my Protestant prophets are fanatics. For my part, I think the only difference between them is that if you are a Catholic and have this intensity of belief you join the convent and are heard no more; whereas if you are a Protestant and have it, there is no convent for you to join and you go about the world getting into all sorts of trouble and drawing the wrath of people who don't believe anything much at all down on your head.

The lesser of two evils is a pretty horrible choice for a voter to have to make, and I blame two organizations for this eventuality:

1. The Republican party, which (if you ignore the war issue) has become almost as wishy-washy as the Democrats in the past few years. I support David Brooks' proposal for a more Whiggity-Whack GOP [free registration required].

2. I blame the system I've hated ever since high school: the electoral college, which should be dismantled. Not only do the most populous states get the most influence anyways; in a national election it makes more sense to appeal to demographics and interests rather than individual states.

In fact, now that we can rebuild it and we'll have the technology, I'd side with Wired, which has an excellent proposal for nationwide run-off elections (under Problem #2).

So that's where I stand, barring a surprise selection of McCain as VP in New York (which would make Bush practically unbeatable, after all this "Cheney as dark mentor" nonsense). That said, as President of the Lawrence University Wishy-Washy Moderates, I can't claim that my decision is final. I'm sure not satisfied with it.