My thoughts exactly. There is literally no candidate I can vote for on principle for the Presidential election. All I can do is hope that an Obama presidency creates a huge amount of political turbulence. But it will take more than that to destroy the two-faces-of-one-party system.

Actually, what will destroy the "two faces of one party" system that Joel H. completely mis-identifies is the ballot measure next month that opens up the closed primary system.

Unlike Joel H., I believe that our current system actually gives us more extreme candidates, particularly on the Republican side, and makes it too easy for the Democrats to put any old schmo for office and know he or she is going to be elected.

The reason the Democrats want this ballot measure to fail is that they know the Republicans are insane. The reason the Republicans want this ballot measure to fail is because they are insane.

A wide open primary system gives candidates out the mainstream, either because they are too moderate for their party or they are too extreme for their party, a fighting chance to make their case.

That's a really bad reason to vote for one candidate over another. By that reasoning, we should have all voted Republican in the 2002 Congressional election.

If you want viable minor parties, don't vote for the top-two elections measure this fall. There's no evidence that this measure will encourge viable minor parties. Instead, push for instant-runoff voting or proportional representation.

The turbulence factor, you mean? Obviously. Obama's a vastly better candidate than McCain in every way I can think of. I think Bush in 2000 was actually a better candidate than McCain is now.

Chris, that's true of "the left" and also "the right", but I was mostly referring to the influence that major moneyed interests (military/prison industrial, entertainment industry, legal and illegal drug cartels, etc.) appear to have on both parties. It's often claimed that the last 8 years have refuted the idea that there's no difference between the parties, but I disagree, except to the extend that the Democrats appear to be rather more competent. It's not at all obvious that Gore would not also have taken the 9/11 opportunity to invade Iraq. Let's not forget who his running mate was, and the crimes the Clinton administration committed in Iraq and Waco and Miami and elsewhere. Remember Tipper Gore's music censorship campaign? Both parties represent military aggression, authoritarianism and the erosion of civil rights.

There are a number of coherent points of view that are partly represented by traditional Democratic issues and partly by traditional Republican issues, and effectively not represented at all. I'm a moderately leftist libertarian, I'm dating a Green, and I think we have more in common than either of us do with the mainstream parties. That's a bizarre state of affairs, don't you agree?

I'm actually more excited about Cindy Sheehan's campaign to oust Nancy Pelosi than I am about the presidential campaign.

Re: "I am a pragmatic independent; one who can read the polls and see that the Democrats easily will win the House and Senate, as well as White House in November."

"ROLLING STONE: IT'S ALREADY STOLEN

Investigation by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast released today. Will the Dems Pay Attention?

Don't worry about Mickey Mouse or ACORN stealing the election. According to an investigative report out today in Rolling Stone magazine, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, after a year-long investigation, reveal a systematic program of "GOP vote tampering" on a massive scale.

• Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls.

Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge - ten times the average state's rate of removal.

• While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush.

Kennedy, a voting rights lawyer, charges this is a resurgence of 'Jim Crow' tactics to wrongly block Black and Hispanic voters.

• A fired US prosecutor levels new charges - accusing leaders of his own party, Republicans, with criminal acts in an attempt to block legal voters as "fraudulent."

• Digging through government records, the Kennedy-Palast team discovered that, in 2004, a GOP scheme called "caging" ultimately took away the rights of 1.1 million voters. The Rolling Stone duo predict that, this November 4, it will be far worse.

There's more:

• Since the last presidential race, "States used dubious 'list management' rules to scrub at least 10 million voters from their rolls."

Among those was Paul Maez of Las Vegas, New Mexico - a victim of an unreported but devastating purge of voters in that state that left as many as one in nine Democrats without a vote. For Maez, the state's purging his registration was particularly shocking - he's the county elections supervisor.

The Kennedy-Palast revelations go far beyond the sum of questionably purged voters recently reported by the New York Times.

"Republican operatives - the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics," report Kennedy and Palast, under the cover of fighting fraudulent voting, are "systematically disenfranchis[ing] Democrats."

The investigators level a deadly serious charge:

"If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat McCain at the polls - they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering."

Block the Vote by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Greg Palast in the current issue (#1064) of Rolling Stone."

The question is: Why have Democrats impeded the fair vote movement?

Good find, Harry.

Obama's a vastly better candidate than McCain in every way I can think of.

To put this another and more accurate way Obama isn't quite as bad as McCain.

I couldn't comprehend why BlueOregon posted this letter to the editor when I read the first paragraph, but it became clear when I read the last sentence in the second paragraph. In other words, vote for the lesser evil and continue the same abysmal practice that has maneuvered this nation into deeper doo-doo than ever.

This video has advice for what progressives need to do if Obama becomes president. Unfortunately, there aren't that many real progressives in this nation so Obama will probably just do what his corporate sponsors want him to do for them - unless the economy really goes down the tank and the people finally get off their lethargic and apathetic butts and rise up and say, "Enough."

I like the headline for this post: "LTE: 'Let's face it. The Republicans are losers.'"

It seems to me this letter to the editor (LTE) really said that the Republicans AND Democrats are losers, an analysis I fully agree with.

Obama will probably just do what his corporate sponsors want him to do for them

icch. your story has become tiresome.

which corporate sponsors are those, pray tell? or is that just a cool sounding thing to say?

icch. your story has become tiresome.

which corporate sponsors are those, pray tell? or is that just a cool sounding thing to say?

What is tiresome is that people who have been paying attention have had to keep saying the same thing for decades. It's tough trying to wake up a sleeping nation. Let me repeat some data that you have apparently not been able to comprehend.

Fundraising by presidential candidates. Where do you think all those hundreds of millions came from? Joe Six-Packs or Joe the Plumbers?

Basic data for Obama

Industries investing in Obama. Check the data for communications/electronics and remember his vote to give telecoms retro-active immunity for turning over data to the spooks. If I understand it correctly this violated the Fourth Amendment.

Top contributors. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, J P Morgan Chase and Lehman Brothers gave over 2 million which helps to explain why Obama voted for the bailout.

Donor demographics. You can bet almost all of the $2300 and $4600 donors came from the corporate world. Not many Joes or Janes in that bunch.

icch. your story has become tiresome.

which corporate sponsors are those, pray tell? or is that just a cool sounding thing to say?

What is tiresome is that people who have been paying attention have had to keep saying the same thing for decades. It's tough trying to wake up a sleeping nation. Let me repeat some data that you have apparently not been able to comprehend.

Fundraising by presidential candidates. Where do you think all those hundreds of millions came from? Joe Six-Packs or Joe the Plumbers?

icch. your story has become tiresome.

I take it you don't see the linkage between campaign donations and votes in Congress such as with the Wall Street bailout. Presumably, you would rather have those of us who are offended by the corruption in Congress shut up so you can sleepwalk in blissful ignorance while our senators and representatives help a variety of corporations rip us off and drag this nation to its point of collapse. How about the way Halliburton and KBR ripped off the government and betrayed the troops in Iraq? Was that also okay with you?

I always love it when contributors here introduce us to thoughtful analysis from across the full spectrum of the Internet.

Bill Bodden brought up a video presenting The Real News Network, and I would encourage others to make it a matter of habit to pay attention to this website. I subscribe to their email newsletter and have become increasingly convinced of the superior merit of Paul Jay's editing at this website. Sign up here.

"That means states and districts represented by Republicans will be left out in the cold when it comes time to fund local projects."

I really hope that won't be the case. I do think better of the Democratic party than that. After all, it's exactly that kind of mean-spirited, vengeful, irresponsible action -the kind that the GOP has carried out for the last eight years- that has our country in such a divided, polarized mess.

pdxatheist: You are not an atheist. The DP and its regressive candidate are your gods.

"Overall, Obama is flat-out kicking McCain's ass when it comes to Wall Street contributions, raking in nearly $9 million from securities and investment executives, compared to $6.2 million for McCain. Obama has received more contributions from Goldman Sachs than from any other employer -- more than $627,000 at this writing -- not to mention $398,021 from JP Morgan Chase, $353,922 from Lehman Brothers and $291,388 from Morgan Stanley. Even among hedge-fund executives, who have an unequivocal interest in electing McCain, Obama is whipping the Republican, collecting $500,000 more than McCain. All of which begs the question: Why would corporate giants like these throw so much weight behind a man who promises to strip them of billions in tax breaks? Sadly, the answer to that question increasingly appears to be that Obama is, well, full of shit." (Big Business Is Making Sure It Wins the Presidency)

I really hope that won't be the case. I do think better of the Democratic party than that. After all, it's exactly that kind of mean-spirited, vengeful, irresponsible action -the kind that the GOP has carried out for the last eight years- that has our country in such a divided, polarized mess.

<h2>... with the complicity of a sizable portion of the Democratic party giving new meaning to the term "loyal opposition."</h2>