My wife and I had some dear friends over last night for dinner. Both the wife and I are going with Bush this election and our friends are both voting for Bush. However, when the conversation turned to politics, our debate came out civilized and balanced. The difference? The first words out of Matt's mouth were "Bush is an absolute idiot". He then went on to talk down Kerry, give his reasons for support to the war in Iraq and make some strong arguments about the economic policies of each. What kept it civil though was that original statement that said that he didn't think in terms of black and white, that he obviously saw the glaring faults of George Bush. Once that statement came out it was obvious that our differences in preference were small and could be safely debated. My wife and I both conceded concerns about Kerry. We had quickly reached the common ground.

As it turned out, their main reason for wanting Bush had to do with their economics. Our friends are very well off and in the upper tax brackets. In addition, he's a psychologist and she's a drug representative for Phizer. She's greatly concerned about the importing of Canadian drugs and he's in major support of tort reform, particularly in regard to medical malpractice. They have no children so education and the possiblity of extended war and a future draft aren't really threatening to them. It was completely understandable, other than them believing Bush to be a moron, why they would lean toward the conservative ticket. They were also not threatened with our leanings toward the other side.

Anyway, it was a good lesson to me about the differences in intelligent and civil debate and the shrill partisanship I see on here. Posts on here have no humility, no room for wiggle, very little balance in the way they view issues and most importantly, very little deprecating of the guy we intend to vote for. Let's face it, neither of these guys are the next Lincoln or Jefferson. They both have glaring faults and I think it would do us all good to fully admit that before launching into our tirades about some policy issue that's setting our pants on fire for the day. I'll lead off. Kerry sounds too much like Thurston Howell III at times during his speeches.