Some observers note, that while Republican party presents a list of ideas, Democrats are dominated by highly vocal single-issue groups. True or not, here is my "single-issue" endorsement of the incumbent president. It is not my "job security" nor the cost of my health insurance. It is the Iraq war.
The arguments for it were, probably, best laid out this last February by the late BBC correspondent Alistair Cooke, of the Letter from America fame.
So, here is my "single issue":
If Bush is voted out, no future president will dare attacking a vicious tyrant. The presidential staff will always be there to remind her/him of the "fate of the Bushes", who both waged and promptly won a just war against a universally hated regime, but lost the subsequent elections.And -- unlike Bush's real flaws -- this "historical lesson" will be very hard to erase. Our nation is still recovering from the loss in Vietnam -- 30 years ago.
Of all potential Democratic candidates, only Howard Dean objected to this war from the beginning. Both Kerry and Edwards are on record supporting it, even if they now try to say, they would've fought it somehow differently (with a military of their own?). If you oppose this war, the Democratic party failed you.
As a Massachusetts resident, I have no illusion, that Kerry might lose this state. So I vote for Michael Badnarick of the Libertarian party -- despite his opposition to war. But I really want to see Bush re-elected.