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[SlaveNoMore]

Atticus Grinch
Republicans and Clinton are like dogs and a bone.

Woof.

And now for something completely different.

Here is an excellent letter posted on Andrew Sullivan's website:

• You would, I think, be amazed at how many people in Middle America (if the Middle Tennessee area counts as that--I think it does) are politically frustrated in much the same way you are. It's not the ideologues--they've picked their sides--people who are both social and fiscal righties are for Bush; people who are both social and fiscal lefties are for Kerry. It's the ones in the middle, people who might describe themselves as center-left or center-right, maybe they are fiscal conservatives but social moderates, for instance, who are as sorely frustrated as you seem to be.
  
  I have talked to many people--professionals from all walks of life who have never missed an election before who are seriously thinking of just sitting this one out. They are not "undecided" as that terms is usually used (i.e., people who haven't been paying enough attention to care and thus don't know anything). They are undecided in the opposite way--they have been paying A LOT of attention and know pretty much everything...not much of it good.
  
  Here's what they want:
  
  1. A President for whom the War on Terror is by far the top priority and who will execute it with cold efficiency and competence. They don't mind if mistakes are made--they even expect them (omelet-making and all)--but by God they wnat someone to 'fess up to them and make them right.
  
  2. A President who doesn't kowtow to every freaking interest group that beats down his door--unions, religious groups, activist groups, etc.
  
  3. Along those same lines, they want a President who has goddamned opinions that are clear, forthright and his own. They don't like Kerry because he really--when you get right down to it--has no principled opinions, and they don't like Bush because listing to him talk wiothout a prepared text (and sometimes even with a prepared text) is pretty excruciating, especially for people in the so-called "creative class" with whom I'm largely dealing.
  
  4. They don't--as hard as it may be for people on both the social right and left to understand--give two sh*ts about abortion and homosexuality one way or other in the context of the presidential election. I talked to one person who said she wanted to go four years without a sitting president ever talking about these two topics one way or the the other. This was a very devout, adamantly pro-life woman. You know that Dennis Miller quote making the rounds, somthing about he doesn't care if two guys get married, he does care about the terrorist who wants to blow up the place they're getting married in? That's EXACTLY how these people feel.
  
  5. The biggest frustration among many of these people is that they feel like President Bush abused their trust. These are people who either voted for Gore or reluctantly pulled the lever for Bush, yet rallied around him after 9/11, often to their detriment, as their more lefty peers heavily criticized them for supporting him. They maintained that support and defended Bush to the hilt through much of last year, especially for the Iraq War, and especially after the capture of Saddam. Now they feel mildly betrayed...since they went out on a political limb for a man whom they feel took them for granted and seems to have no idea that that's the case.
  
  Yeah, there's a lot that can happen between now and November, but right now there are a lot of people ready and willing to stay at home, a concept they wouldn't have even pondered before in their lives.

Couldn't have said this better myself.