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Welcome to FR. It's good to see someone on the left who's actually willing to discuss ideas. Too many people seem to think (like Don Henley) that "debate" consists of them talking into a microphone and all the rest of us paying them to be forced to listen to it and keep our mouths shut.

I think you are misreading the mood of conservatives, or at least mine, when you say they support President Bush uncritically. In fact, I have a number of qualms about Bush: the overreaching FCC, the unconstitutional CFR bill, the bloated education bill, the runaway spending, etc. If the Democrats had put forth a candidate whom I found to be credible on defense, I might have considered him.

But the overriding factor to me is the fact that we were attacked on our own soil -- 3,000 innocent people murdered on live TV before our eyes -- by a terrorist organization that has declared war on us and threatened far worse. Yet the Democratic Party still seems to think that the worst thing to happen to America in the past four years is that Al Gore's boatload of lawyers were unable to rewrite the election laws after the election in Florida. The shrill, never-ending tantrum they've been throwing since early 2001 has convinced me that they are not a serious party; that their own lack of power has reduced them to a pack of squalling two-year-olds, and that in fact it is they for whom regaining power has taken precedence over every other consideration, including the very survival of the nation and its people.

The Convention just pounded home the themes of immaturity and defense weakness. There were prominent roles for unserious, foaming-mouth rabble-rousers like Michael Moore and Al Sharpton. Kerry took two opposing defense positions in one speech (he'll hunt down the terrorists, but he'll also hurry out of Iraq and wait around to be attacked again before responding). And the coup de grace: the biggest ovation went to a smart-mouthed 12-year-old attacking Dick Cheney for the private use of a word that their own presidential nominee had used in a Rolling Stone interview.

Thanks, but with all my concerns about Bush (and I do think there are a lot of things that need to be reversed), at this point in history, I just can't trust these people with the lives of my family. I think that's why the poll numbers read as they do: it's not just that swing voters were turned off by Kerry, but that Bush supporters who were wavering got a look at the alternative and said, "Nope, I'd rather just grumble through four more years of Bush."