Andrew Hagen

I’ve struggled with this for a long time. I now follow my conscience.

Earlier I had unequivocally endorsed John Kerry for President. (*) I based my decision on Kerry’s strong support for energy independence. Since then, however, Kerry has all but ignored the issue of energy independence. Furthermore, George W Bush has paid lip service to the idea. Neither candidate stands above the other on this critical issue. Neither strikes me as a true believer. Consequently, I must rethink my endorsement of Kerry.

Kerry’s switching of positions on numerous issues indicates to me that he is both a liar and a person who does not think seriously about the present war. I doubt that John Kerry truly believes that the Global War on Terrorism is a real war upon the outcome of which hangs the future of our country. Kerry doesn’t have a position on the war so much as he has an attitude on it. It isn’t that he’s antiwar. It’s that he has no well-thought, consistent, articulable position. Kerry’s is an unserious mind.

I agree with much of John Kerry’s platform as written, but I do not believe he believes in his platform as written.

I withdraw my endorsement of Kerry.

I would endorse much of John Kerry’s domestic policy as it is stated in the Democratic Party written platform, especially on the economy and the environment.

I would endorse most of George W Bush’s foreign policy, even though the White House’s execution of it has often failed significantly.

I endorse no candidate for President.

Regardless of who wins, Bush or Kerry, our country is in for a very difficult four years. Neither man is a great leader. Neither man will be able to unite the country. The national challenges pending are great.

Unity is what the USA needs now. There is one union under one flag. Since 9/11 we have spent more time fighting each other than fighting the Enemy.

The vicious partisan attacks between the Republicans and Democrats began with Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. Since then we have had fights over impeachment, Kosovo, Florida 2000, 9/11, and Iraq. The list just keeps growing.

I disagree that this is a 50/50 nation. Once the American people really start paying attention, they will see that both the Republicans and Democrats are lying about their plans for the future, and neither has the best ideas to lead our nation.

This election must not become a turning point in our nation’s history, because if it does we will be dragged down by Bush or Kerry, whomever is the winner.

We need a new majority political party, not based on either the Democrats or Republicans. Until then, we the American people must do whatever we can to preserve our country under attack from abroad and at home, and we must do it without the benefit of excellent political leadership.

Michael Reilly notes that in the third debate Kerry said at one point that his faith does not guide his politics, and at another criticized faith without works. (*)

(The linked article takes a pro-life stand. I am pro-choice on the grounds that a mother’s right to choose is high in importance.)

18 October 2004. Updated for clarity.

In the third debate, Bush said:

If you’re a Christian, Jew or Muslim, you’re equally an American. That’s the great thing about America, is the right to worship the way you see fit.…

In Afghanistan, I believe that the freedom there is a gift from the Almighty.

(*) There’s nothing controversial in that excerpt.

On the other hand, Kerry said:

Everything is a gift from the Almighty. And as I measure the words of the Bible — and we all do; different people measure different things — the Koran, the Torah, or, you know, Native Americans who gave me a blessing the other day had their own special sense of connectedness to a higher being.

This statement is totally at odds with Christian teaching that one can only come to know God through Jesus.

Furthermore, in Christian teaching, everything is not from God. Sin, for example, does not originate in God.

Kerry would be the first American President with this New Age religious sensibility.

A quick overview is in order of the heated discussion over John Kerry’s mentioning that VP Dick Cheney’s daughter is a lesbian in the third debate. (*)

On gay issues, including marriage, the pro-gay rights side is now deeply committed to a very narrow rhetoric. All they say is that opposition to their opinion is offensive. They rarely make arguments anymore.

The conservative side on gay issues engages with both arguments and references to persons. They will make an argument that gay marriage will harm society for one reason or another, but then they will also call gay people names or attempt to deny their humanity.

My position is that reasoned arguments should carry the day. We should find neither taking offense nor name-calling persuasive.

To sum up the argument over Kerry’s reference to Mary Cheney, Kerry referenced her in order to make a deeply personal attack on Bush and hence to undermine Bush’s point, based as it was on a reasoned argument. The conservatives and Cheney family members who have taken offense at Kerry’s reference (†) have not relied on the fact of the reference’s complete irrelevance. Instead they have tried to flip Kerry’s personal attack on the Cheney family back on Kerry by calling Kerry’s tactic “tawdry,” and stating that Kerry is “not a good man.”

As Rodney King asked, can’t we all just get along?

On gay issues, let’s all attempt to rely on reason, logic, evidence, and argument, not personal commentary.

Columnist Charles Krauthammer, MD:

After the second presidential debate, in which John Kerry used the word “plan” 24 times, I said on television that Kerry has a plan for everything except curing psoriasis. I should have known there is no parodying Kerry’s pandering. It turned out days later that the Kerry campaign has a plan — nay, a promise — to cure paralysis. What is the plan? Vote for Kerry.

I’m not making this up. I couldn’t. This is John Edwards on Monday at a rally in Newton, Iowa: “If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.'’

In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery.…

(*) It would be hard to overestimate the dishonesty, irresponsibility, or recklessness of John Edwards’s statement.

One daydreams about a Kerry-Gephardt ticket.

Krauthammer further points out that contrary to statements in the presidential debates, there is no current “ban” on stem cell research, only a restriction on federal spending. On the other hand, it would be best to ban the embryonic sort of stem cell research and allow the rest.

A recent poll showed only two countries out of the dozen or so surveyed support Bush over Kerry. (*)

The only two countries surveyed supporting Bush are Israel and Russia. Israel has endured countless bloody attacks. Russia recently suffered the Beslan schoolchildren massacre. Here in the USA, we had the 9/11 attacks.

The Guardian says the reason for the Kerry preference is the “strong personal antipathy” worldwide against Bush.

If Kerry were to follow his campaign promise, however, and fight the Global War on Terrorism as vigorously as Bush and yet more competently than Bush, there is little reason to think international opinion would continue to support Kerry in such large numbers.

What is more likely is that Kerry does not plan to fight the war as vigorously as has Bush, and that people around the globe have forecast that and understand that, even as Kerry vocally promises the opposite.

The MSNBC “After Hours” program following the debates is the best cable news show on the election.

Here’s part of the transcript after the Vice-Presidential debate. (*)

Ron Reagan starts it off:

REAGAN: And now a critical exchange in tonight‘s battle took place when John Edwards compared this Bush administrations record of building an alliance for Iraq against the president‘s father‘s record in the Gulf War. That triggered a harsh response from Vice President Cheney. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You demean the sacrifice of our allies and you say it‘s wrong war, wrong place, wrong time and oh, by the way send troops. Makes no sense at all. It‘s totally inconsistent. There isn‘t a plan there. Our most important ally in the war on terror in Iraq specifically is Prime Minister Allawi.

He came recently and addressed a joint session of Congress that I presided over with the Speaker of the House and John Kerry rushed out immediately after his speech was over with where he came and he thanked America for our contributions and our sacrifice and pledged to hold those elections in January. Went out and demeaned him, criticized him, challenged his credibility.

That is not the way to win friends and allies. You‘re never going to add to the coalition with that kind of attitude.

GWEN IFILL, MODERATOR: Senator Edwards, 30 seconds.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you. The vice president suggests that we have the same number of countries involved now that we had in the first Gulf War. First Gulf War cost the American people $5 billion.

And regardless of what the Vice President says, we‘re at $200 billion and counting. Not only that, 90 percent of the coalition casualties, Mr. Vice President, the coalition casualties are American casualties. Ninety percent of the cost of this effort are being born by American taxpayers. It is the direct result of the failures of this administration.

INFILL: Mr. Vice President.

CHENEY: Classic example. He won‘t count the sacrifice and the contribution of our Iraqi allies. It‘s their country, they‘re in the fight, they‘re increasingly the ones out their putting their necks on the line to take back their country from the terrorists and the old regime elements that are still left. They‘re doing a superb job and for you to demean their sacrifice it strikes me as…

EDWARDS: Oh I‘m not demeaning…

CHENEY: It is indeed—you suggest that somehow it shouldn‘t count because you want to be able to say that the Americans are taking 90 percent of the sacrifice. You cannot succeed in this effort if you‘re not willing to recognize the enormous contribution the Iraqis are increasingly making to their own future.

We‘ll win when they take on responsibility for governance which they‘re doing and when they take on responsibility for their own security, which they increasingly are doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCARBOROUGH: Mike Barnicle who got the better end of that exchange?

MIKE BARNICLE, THE BOSTON HERALD: I think the Vice President.

SCARBOROUGH: Why is that?

BARNICLE: I just think people look at him no matter whether they like him or not, no matter whether they think he‘s so filled with doom and gloom most of the time that, you know, he‘s a serious fellow and—not that John Edwards isn‘t a serious fellow—but the contrast between the two, I think, goes to the Vice President.

SCARBOROUGH: How—you know, I always said, you know, that Bill Clinton could have never gotten elected in 1988 when there was a Soviet Union in 1992 — all of a sudden; he was acceptable to the American people.

Are we looking at people like Dick Cheney in 2001, you know, after September 11, 2001 saying you know what, he may not be the smoothest guy in the world, he may scare little kids and puppy dogs—at the same time we‘re in a war, we want somebody tough and competent like that?

HOWARD FINEMAN, NEWSWEEK: We want somebody who scares people but the other point is that if the Kerry-Edwards theory doesn‘t hold up because their not saying they want to get out of Iraq.

They‘re saying the war was wrongly begun but they want to finish it. They needed to have said good things about Allawi if they‘re being honest about what they believe because Allawi is trying, we have to think, to install some kind of more democratic government there.

The problem with Kerry-Edwards is that they‘re not speaking up for freedom around the world, which they need to do to try to get to high ground in the debate.

If they don‘t do that then Dick Cheney is going to say, look, it‘s messy—yes we made some mistakes but we‘re still on basically the right course and it‘s that fundamental part of that that Kerry-Edwards can‘t challenge because they‘re basically saying we want to say—heck they‘re saying we want to go into Fallujah.

SCARBOROUGH: We‘re going to stay there but we‘re not necessarily going to support the Iraqi prime minister when he comes over and speaks to a joint session of Congress.

FINEMAN: That doesn‘t make any sense. That doesn‘t make any sense unless you‘re going to dismiss that whole thing as a corrupt exercise over there, which they‘re not—the Democrats are not quite willing to do.

There is no Kerry-Edwards foreign policy vision other than excessive pragmatism. That is a statement about the impoverished state of contemporary progressive political thought.

Thanks to “security moms,” Bush is picking up more support from women than a Republican presidential candidate could have expected based on previous elections. Quoting Newsweek, the Christian Science Monitor reports on “identical numbers for men and women in the race: Men favor Bush 49 percent to 43 percent, as do women.” Women give Bush a 23 point edge on security and terrorism issues. (*)

To win, Kerry needs to be strong on national defense. He cannot allow the public’s perception of weakness to continue. Simply saying, “We will blow up Al Qaeda” does not cut it. Kerry must be credible on this issue. He needs to dig deep down inside, speak from the heart, and articulate what he would do as Commander-in-Chief.

Islamic terrorists have been training in the Philippines for murderous attacks in Indonesia and around the violent hot spots of southeast Asia. The terror camps have supported attacks in Jakarta, and probably elsewhere. The AP reports on the secret Philippine government report. (*)

The Bush Administration has not done enough to combat terror in southeast Asia, especially the Philippines. Kerry could and should make this an issue.

Muslim-Americans are backing Kerry over Bush by a margin of 76% to 7%, according to a Zogby poll. (*)

We’re about a month away from election day and so far the 2004 campaign for the White House has poorly served the American public.

This election campaign should focus on the large issues of the day. Instead, the discussion has been what two young men did during the Vietnam War, a large event in which neither played a major part.

Neither Bush nor Kerry will rebuke their compatriots who clog the limited public space with their shouting over medals and National Guard service.

In terms of character, that unwillingness to criticize errant friends alone suggests that neither man is interested in putting his country’s fortunes in front of his own.

Meanwhile, we have two candidates hovering around swing states and trading empty sound bites.

What this election campaign needs is what is called “clash,” on-topic responses and rebuttals, rejoinders and refutations, from one candidate to another.

Unfortunately, there is little chance of this. We get the presidential debates in a few weeks. The likely schedule was announced months ago, as I noted back then. (*) The formal debates might be the only part of this campaign with clash. On the other hand, the debates could turn into a farce.

For now, here is some artificial clash.

John Kerry: (†)

Let me put it plainly: The President’s policy in Iraq has not strengthened our national security. It has weakened it.

The problem with this argument is that we have not had a successful foreign terrorist attack on the homeland since 9/11. Anthrax and Flight 587 are murky in nature, and long ago. If we haven’t been hit, what does it mean that our national security is weakened?

George W Bush: (‡)

Because we acted, the government of a free Afghanistan is fighting terror, Pakistan is capturing terrorist leaders, Saudi is making raids and arrests, Libya is dismantling its weapons programs, the army of a free Iraq is fighting for freedom, and more than three-quarters of al Qaeda’s key members and associates have been detained or killed.

President Bush omits the Phillipines, Indonesia, Thailand, North Korea, the Sudan, Nigeria, Syria, Iran, and Russia. The terrorist outlook for these countries is markedly improved since the beginning of the Bush presidency. Furthermore, the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t as rosy as they should be, thanks in large part to Bush’s inability to crack down on international terror emanating from Iran and elsewhere. Meanwhile Saudi citizens are still financially backing terrorism, despite the handful of arrests carried out by the tyrannical monarchy there. John Kerry’s energy independence plan would at least cut into Saudi wealth. Bush apparently has no problem with $46 a barrel oil, and he doesn’t support energy independence.

John Kerry, same speech as above:

“[W]e must have a great honest national debate on Iraq. The President claims it is the centerpiece of his war on terror. In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists.…

We must make Iraq the world’s responsibility, because the world has a stake in the outcome and others should share the burden. We must effectively train Iraqis, because they should be responsible for their own security. We must move forward with reconstruction, because that’s essential to stop the spread of terror.

First he says Iraq is not part of the war on terrorism, then he says it is essential to stopping terror.

Kerry blunders when he sees Iraq, correctly, as a land of suicide bombings and hostage killings, but then fails to describe it as part of the War on Terrorism.

Senator Kerry would do well to say this instead: “When we invaded Iraq, that was an unnecessary diversion from the War on Terrorism. Now, however, due to President Bush’s incompetence in running the war, allowing foreign fighters to enter Iraq and his unwillingness to secure ammo dumps, the military campaign in Iraq is indeed part of the War on Terrorism. It’s a shame Bush brought Iraq into the war unnecessarily.”

That would still be wrong, but it would at least not be a glaring contradiction.

George W Bush, same speech:

We’re also serving a vital and historic cause that’ll make our country safer. Free societies in the Middle East will be hopeful societies, which no longer feed resentments and breed violence for export. Free governments in the Middle East will fight terrorists instead of harboring them, and that helps us keep the peace.

Bush has totally ignored the hard question of whether Islamic government is compatible with individual freedom. As a result, he leaves himself open to the charge that he risks American lives to free people who do not want to be free. Put more elegantly (and more accurately), Bush busily fights for political change in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan to achieve a goal (freedom), achievement of which requires not so much political change but cultural change.

You can’t teach people civic democracy at the barrel of a gun. The barrel of the gun does make civic democracy possible, but war doesn’t teach liberty. Not only does Bush not speak out against the tyrannical side of Islam, he does not allow the State Department a big enough role in the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers’ lives should not be risked so lightly.

What does it mean? The polls are saying Bush is cruising to an easy victory. The incumbent has little incentive to start clashing on the issues. The Kerry campaign is off-track. Kerry is not connecting with the American people. Kerry’s only hope is to start clashing.

If I were John Kerry, I would throw out my stump speech, and stand up in front of Iowa farmers or Pennsylvania truck drivers or whomever, and just do a point-by-point rebuttal of Bush’s stump speeches. That would be clash.

Vice-President Cheney rightly received heat for stating that the US would be hit by a terrorist attack if John Kerry is elected President. Chagrined, Cheney is now softening the edge of his remark. (*)

But could he have been unintentionally on to something? The WTC bombing of 1993 came early in Clinton’s term. The 9/11 attacks came early in Bush’s term. Perhaps one of the terrorist strategies is to attack the US during the early days of each new US President to test our defenses. For reference, the State Department has a list of major terrorist attacks going back four decades. (†)

Should that be the case, it should not play a role in the campaign. National security should be a bipartisan matter.

An interesting fact is that if George W Bush wins re-election on November 2nd and completes his term in 2009, it will be the first time in almost two hundred years that two or more US Presidents have served consecutive eight-year terms in office.

Thomas Jefferson’s presidency ranged from 1801 to 1809. Madison presided from 1809 to 1817. James Monroe served as President from 1817 to 1825. Since then, the US has not had consecutive eight-year presidencies.

Should Bush serve eight years, he will follow Bill Clinton’s eight year term in office.

There are interesting parallels. Bill Clinton’s middle name is “Jefferson.” Both were very smart men who suffered from sex scandals despite their many successes in office. During Madison’s presidency, foreign troops (British) attacked and burned down the White House and the Capitol. During Bush’s term, we have had the 9/11 attacks, where the White House and Capitol were both targeted by foreign terrorists. The Bush Doctrine has been compared, approvingly and disapprovingly, to the Monroe Doctrine.

In the election of 1816, when Madison was re-elected, his opponent was Rufus King, Senator from New York and member of the Federalist Party. Madison cruised to an easy victory. The Federalist Party opposed the War of 1812. As a result, the Federalist Party faded and never returned as a force in American politics. (*) Could the Democratic Party face the same fate as the Federalist Party? The Democrats have not been pragmatic enough on issues of national security, in my opinion. It’s possible that the antiwar, dogmatic approach could discredit the whole party. As a liberal, this concerns me.

It looks like I paced Glenn Harlan Reynolds by a month and a half. Reynolds observes that the media’s swoon for John Kerry is likely to destroy the credibility of the media. (*) I made the same observation a while back. (†)

Reynolds adds a superfluous point on the new Internet “competition” for the old media barons. In fact, the primary news sources are the same on the net as on TV and in print. The media’s real problem is that when their credibility lies in ruins, demand for their product will dry up. People will be less willing to pay to read it, and advertisers will see less value in ad placements.

Building new media brands would be a costly investment.

To avoid disaster, the liberal media should just take the masks off and admit their biases, like Fox News or AM talk radio. Credibility comes from honesty and fairness, not feigned objectivity. The big media would temporariliy lose some of their audience, but they would be protecting their credibility for the long run.

Of course, NPR and PBS as government-sponsored media don’t have that option.

Rumors swirl of the protests turning ugly. The Republican National Convention in New York has the potential to rival the riot-torn Democratic convention in Chicago of 1968.

Rick Perlstein is desperate to teach the Bush bashers and the left-wingers a lesson based on history. Rioting doesn’t work. Direct action without a feasible political goal doesn’t work. After Chicago ‘68, Nixon cruised to an easy victory on a promise of law and order. (*)

Perlstein does not realize he speaks to a stone wall. The whole premise of the Left is to ignore history, and to ignore human nature as well. Telling leftists to learn from history is like teaching a dog to grow leaves. Hence, the Left relies on “the great leader” (Martin Luther King, for example) to give orders from above. Without “the great leader” the Left is little more than an angry, congealed blob that achieves nothing.

Should riots break out in New York, the effect will be just like that of “N30,” the violent anti-WTO Seattle protest. There will be no effect. That which is protested will grind along as before.

All that we can do is stand back in awe at their sanctimony, and hope no one else gets hurt. Already one policeman was beaten.

Did George W Bush really earn a varsity letter for cheerleading at Yale? The newly formed group Yale Cheerleaders for Truth demands answers. (*)

Could there be any issue in the election more critical than this?

I don’t see how the swift boat issue is relevant to the 2004 election.

If Bush and Kerry were truly “swift,” they would “move on” to something that matters today.

The Vietnam War does have historical importance. Nevertheless, more than just history ought to give us guidance as we look ahead to the future.

The year is 1944. The Allies have broken through at Normandy and are racing to Germany. At a certain point, however, the fighting ceases so that dozens of ocean freighters carrying wienerschnitzel, sausage, beer, and other German products can get through from Germany to the US. In this alternative history, the US was dependent on German exports during World War II. As the fighting resumes, wave upon wave of Panzers and ME-262 jet fighters, financed by Germany’s enormous export income, push back the liberators and defeat the Allies soundly. Nazi Germany wins the war. Fortunately, that did not happen because the US was not dependent on German exports during the war.

Today, we fight a war against terrorists even as our economy and the economy of the world are dependent on Middle Eastern oil. Inevitably, oil money filters through to militant Islamist terrorists. We probably can never cut off the flow of funds unless and until competitor fuel sources are developed. Once we cut off the flow of funds, we will near victory in the war.

George W Bush has done very little for energy indepenence. Should we drill in Alaska or off the coast of Florida, we would still be dependent on Middle Eastern oil.

We need the will to kick the habit.

John Kerry’s plan for energy independence is bold and creative. (*) It could stand major improvement, but spending $10 billion is what matters. Of course, we should spend more.

Energy independence would be a more effective weapon against terrorism than a fleet of bombers and a phalanx of missiles. Energy independence ought to be a top priority.

We need to lavishly finance scientists and engineers in research and development projects. We need something on the scale of the Manhattan Project or the Apollo program. We need to direct funds into research like fusion, cold fusion, zero-point energy, and pretty much everything short of Dr Klimp’s perpetual motion machine.

Of the two major candidates, only John Kerry has thus far shown the vision to undertake the necessary investment.

Unless something changes, I’m supporting Kerry for President on the basis of his determined plan for energy independence.

John Kerry has a brilliant campaign theme: make America independent of foreign oil. Kerry’s only problem is that he hasn’t taken it into the center of his platform.

The USA will probably never be independent of foreign oil. We use too much of it, and our own oil reserves are too small. Yet, by trying to achieve independence from foreign oil, we may reduce our dependence enough to make a difference. This can be called “energy independence” because that is the goal.

Drilling in Alaska (ANWR) and off Florida and elsewhere would not give us enough oil to make us politically independent of the oil oligarchs of the Middle East. The oil locked up in Canadian shale is still too expensive to extract.

Ultimately, we are obsessed with what happens in the Middle East primarily because that is where sits most of the world’s oil reserves, and because the world’s economy is dependent on cheap, plentiful oil. If we can make our country and thus the world significantly less dependent on oil, that will undermine our need to pay deference to tyrannical regimes there, and will give us a freer hand to pursue our highest foreign policy goals. It will defund terrorists. It will deteriorate the financial resources of regimes like Saddam’s Iraq or today’s Iran so that they cannot even afford to build nuclear weapons, or buy them.

US energy independence, or something that approaches it, would shorten the war and perhaps win it outright. Energy independence is thus a war strategy of critical importance.

The Democratic Party platform has this to say on energy independence. (*)

No strategy for American security is complete without a plan to end America’s dependence on Mideast oil. Today, the American economy depends on oil controlled by some of the world’s most repressive regimes. This leaves our economy dangerously vulnerable to nations that do not share our interests. America too often is silent about the practices of some governments because we depend on oil they control.

John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democratic Party believe a strong America must no longer rely on the cooperation of regimes that do not share our values. We believe a strong America must move toward energy independence.…

Harnessing American ingenuity to create renewable energy. Our plan begins with commonsense investments to harness the natural world around us—the sun, wind, water, geothermal and biomass sources, and a rich array of crops—to create a new generation of affordable energy for the 21st century. By mobilizing the amazing productivity of America’s farmers, we can grow our own cleaner-burning fuel. We support tax credits for private sector investment in clean, renewable sources of energy, and we will make ethanol credits work better for farmers. And we will ensure that billions of gallons of renewable fuel are part of America’s energy supply while striving for strong, national renewable energy goals.

Creating the energy-efficient vehicles of tomorrow. We support creating more energy-efficient vehicles, from today’s hybrid cars to tomorrow’s hydrogen cars. We support the American people’s freedom to choose whatever cars, SUVs, minivans, and trucks they choose, but we also believe American ingenuity is equal to the task of improving efficiency. We support improving fuel standards, and because of the challenges this poses, we will offer needed incentives for consumers to buy efficient vehicles, and for manufacturers to build them. We are also committed to developing hydrogen as a clean, reliable domestic source of energy. Our economy cannot convert to hydrogen overnight, so we will fund research to overcome the obstacles to hydrogen fuel and continue our other efforts to achieve energy independence.

Moving beyond OPEC. We can improve our energy security in other ways. We will seek more diverse sources of oil around the world and here at home. We support balanced development of domestic oil supplies in areas already open for exploration, like the western and central Gulf of Mexico. We support the expansion of new infrastructure to develop supplies from non-OPEC nations like Russia, Canada, and nations in Africa. We will increase efficiency of natural gas use, develop the Alaska natural gas pipeline, and enhance our nation’s infrastructure to help supply natural gas more effectively.

Electricity. We will work to create new technology for producing electricity in a better, more efficient manner. Coal accounts for more than one-half of America’s electric power generation capacity today. We believe coal must continue its important role in a new energy economy, while achieving high environmental standards. Working with the coal industry, we will invest billions to develop and implement new, cleaner coal technology and to produce electric and hydrogen power. We will also work to make sure that our people have access to an affordable, secure, and reliable supply of electricity at all times. We support mandatory, enforceable reliability standards. We also support public-private partnerships to make our power systems more flexible, resilient, and self-healing—and more environmentally friendly than ever before.

Government as a role model. The federal government is the largest single consumer of energy in the world. We will cut the federal government’s energy use and challenge local governments, corporations, universities, small businesses and hospitals to do the same.

Our commitment to conservation. A balanced energy policy must create real incentives for energy conservation in our homes, our offices, our factories, and our infrastructure, saving money and improving security even as it creates good jobs and rebuilds our communities.

With sixty-five percent of the world’s oil reserves in the Middle East, we cannot drill our way to energy independence. But we can create, think, imagine, and invent our way there. And we will create jobs, help our environment, and build a stronger country as we do.

This one big idea could be enough to move John Kerry from contender to winner.

George W Bush and the Republican Party have a plan for energy independence, but it is not open enough to alternative energy sources, conservation, or investing in new sources.

John Kerry has been something of an enigma, but with his speech tonight, he pokes his head out of his shell. The Democratic presidential candidate spoke tonight at the Boston convention. (*) George W Bush will headline the Republican National Convention in New York, after the Olympics and before the anniversary of 9/11.

How should independent thinkers weigh and balance the candidacies of Senator John Kerry and President George Bush?

Kerry does not uphold classical marriage strongly enough. His non-opposition and tacit support of the insitutionalization of gay marriage is troubling. So is, in a more symbolic way, his choice of a non-American musical act (albeit one highly popular in America), U2, to close out his speech tonight. Couldn’t he have found an American band he liked?

Open borders is a bad policy, but Kerry and Bush are almost the same on that issue. Kerry lacks vision in his non-support for space exploration. His gung ho desire to destroy human embryos for stem cell research, when adult stem cells would work just as well, undermines his claim to uphold values. He has no ability to pay for his proposed universal health care, or to make such a thing work in free market America.

The Kerry tax policy is unimaginative, and does not promote individual savings or business investment, as Bush’s does so effectively. The Bush tax cuts are working. The Bureau of Economic Analysis finds that in the last three quarters, private investment, an important key to economic growth, has rocketed forward like Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France. (†) Meanwhile, real economic growth is steady and climbing. (‡) Strong job growth will occur in the future. The Bush tax cuts are having a large effect, but a lot of the new employment thus far in the post–9/11 recovery is undermined by the open borders immigration policy (new immigrants taking many of the new jobs), and the outsourcing of jobs offshore.

To his credit, Bush contemplates a national sales tax (§) to promote individual savings at a time when the Social Security crisis is about to hit. A key economic problem in the US for several decades now has been the strikingly low savings rate of our country. This accounts for the dreaded trade deficit. Bush has a bold idea to vigorously promote individual savings just when we need to promote individual savings. Kerry’s tax policy needs to get more creative than just “soak the rich.”

To the benefit of the continued existence of America’s large middle class, Kerry would not allow the estate tax to expire. Kerry would raise the threshold limit. Bush wants the “death tax” completely out of the picture. Bush’s plan would probably create a small leisure class that would never have to work, ushering in a new gilded age.

Norably, Kerry would wisely reduce the federal subsidies for businesses that outsource their workforce offshore. That’s better than Bush’s inaction.

Kerry’s strong commitment to the environment is good, perhaps even too good. While Kerry might not strike the right balance between the environment and market activity, the problem with President Bush is his lack of any balance on the issue at all. Unlike his father, this President Bush has paltry environmental achievements.

With great foresight, Kerry focuses like a laser on securing the world’s stockpiles of nuclear materials. (**) Would he have the leadership and the courage to preemptively invade Iran should that prove necessary to stop that terrorist state from building nuclear weapons? Maybe and maybe not. Now that Bush has spent much of his political capital on the Iraq action, he might not either.

In foreign policy the greatest challenge is the Global War on Terrorism. The next President must finish the job with honor in Iraq and Afghanistan while securing good outcomes, stop the Iranian regime from building nuclear weapons, liberate Persia, deal with Saudi Arabia, and handle North Korea to encourage reunification. Then he must put China on the path to freedom, restruture the US intelligence community, rethink America’s role in international institutions like the UN, reconsider the policy of multiculturalism, and develop a national policy specifically on Islam. Gaining the upper hand in the Global War on Terrorism is critical to everything, foreign and domestic both.

How do we win the war? President Bush does not have a clear plan to win, nor is there one in this Administration that can be seen beneath the murky vapors.

John Kerry’s war plan is even more vague. Yet, John Kerry will do one big thing that George W Bush, with his close ties to the energy industry, perhaps cannot. Kerry will try in a real way to achieve US energy independence. If new technology could cut world oil expenditures by half, let’s say, that would make a huge difference. It would put a terrific cash squeeze on the Islamic oil wealth that ends up funding terrorism. Working for US energy independence can’t happen unless we invest billions of tax dollars on new science and technology in this area. It’s not guaranteed that scientists can pull it off, but they just might, and we will not know until we try.

Bush’s policy for energy independence is ineffectual because it assumes we should continue to be dependent on foreign oil. Drilling in ANWR will not free us of of foreign oil dependence. True energy independence requires a bold change.

Working to become energy independent would probably shorten the war. Kerry will work for real energy independence. Bush will not.

Advantage: Kerry.