Replies

"To be replaced by?"

Dick Gephardt. Don't laugh. I've been a lifelong Republican voter, and I did vote for Bush last go around despite some serious misgivings about his views. Those misgivings have, unfortunately, been justified.

I'm a fiscal and social conservative in the populist tradition. I have no use for a big-business minded Republican administration that does little or nothing for the cause of social conservatism. And Bush Jr has done just that - nothing.

Enter Dick Gephardt, stage left. We know who he is and what he is. In a Gephardt administration, leftist social causes will advance (as they have in the Bush Jr. administration), and deficit spending will continue (as it has in the Bush Jr. administration).

However, Dick Gephardt is a protectionist, while Bush (like Clinton before him) is a died in the wool, let's sell our souls to China while we promote NAFTA, free trader. A booming trade deficit and falling dollar has proven once again to anyone who cares to listen that free trade does not work.

Perhaps a Gephardt administration will be able to accomplish at least one thing that's positive for the United States - a return of our economic freedom.