I would really, really, really have liked the chance to vote for a real presidential candidate in '04.
In '00 Bush was the best choice: Cut taxes, reform the nation's retirement system, does not push for the AWB renewal, understands that oil comes from somewhere, etc.
Then Sept 11 happened and he starts talking like a bad parody of 1984.
Dept of Homeland Security? USA PATRIOT Act? Come on. That was bad, but I was willing to wait a little because I know poor George isn't good at communicating and the word "connotation" is some sort of Irish tribal name to him.
Then he goes into Iraq, which was sure to tie up valuable military resources for questionable gains at best. Worse, Iraq requires a complex, imperfect solution that the American public won't understand or accept. Acceptable solutions are to keep our hands off or nuke 'em til they glow and shoot 'em in the dark. Anything else is incomprehensible shades of gray.
Enter '04: The alternative is Kerry, who liked to shoot civilians and livestock and then come home and talk trash about what he did. Except he didn't take credit for the people he killed. Then he threw his medals from that war over the White House fence to protest. Oh, snap! He proudly displays his medals in his office in the Senate!
It was OK to undo the tax cuts because what's it to him? He's married to the heiress to the Heinz fortune. But wait! It gets better: He left his first wife (quite wealthy) for a wealthier woman! Yes, exactly the kind of commitment I like to see in a Presidential candidate.
I might as well bring up that he brought home an assault rifle as a souvenir from the war (where he generally ravaged Vietnam in a manner befitting Ghengis Khan) but it is not OK for me to own a semi-auto version of that same rifle. Then he had the temerity to say that if I want to get my hands on such a rifle I should join the U.S. military to fight in a war I don't support.
I guess actually setting a good example for the citizens he was going to lead was just a little too much for John Kerry.
So in the end I voted for Bush. He might have been stupid, giving valuable gov't contracts to cronies, and busily spying on U.S. citizens, but at least he wasn't a hypocritical vote whore who would have done the same things and taken away my guns. There lies what is possibly the single best thing Bush ever did: a fair number of Democrats suddenly understood why they are supposed to own military pattern rifles. The Democratic gun grabbing monolith suddenly started to show a few cracks.
Like I started with, I would really, really, really have liked to have had real candidates to choose from, not 3rd party wannabes, and not the two who were duking it out. Someone who I looked up to as a leader, who was good for the country, and who had a good shot at winning.