I have to say that I am increasingly appalled by the lack of political knowlege (international or otherwise) that people around me have. I wore a Kerry/Edwards pen on my bluejean jacket and was asked by two different women, one who is 20 and the other who is 28, "Who is Kerry Edwards?"

I couldn't believe it. I of course scoffed at them both, although it happened on two separate occasions. I informed them that John Kerry, and John Edwards were the Democratic Party's canidates for President and Vice President of the U.S.

What did they have to say for themselves? They don't follow politics, especially in America. Turn on the television, the radio, or read a newspaper people!

What they do not realise is that the president of the United States, more than ever now has a major impact on the world.

I come from a very non-political background. Although my parents always vote in presidential elections, politics wasn't a topic of major discourse in our family. I have always been a little indifferent about the political outcome of every presidential election I have been alive for--that is, until now.

I know that politics is a sticky subject and more often than not can become ugly when discussed with the wrong crowd. I have been in several pointless arguments with mr ralph's so-called friend who is a full-fledged Bush supporter. We won't go down that path right now, but I do understand why some people my age choose to ignore political debates and decide to ignore altogether the politics of America.

I hope against all hope that the young people in America know who John Kerry and John Edwards are. I hope they will no longer sit back and let the old ruin the country, and that they will vote in this election. I admittedly have up until this point in my life been against voting. I have issues with the electoral college and the whole election process in America and have come to the conclusion that my single vote really doesn't do much, if anything at all in deciding the outcome of the election. The 2000 election couldn't have proved my point more after Bush stole the election and cheated his way into the whitehouse.

Maybe it is my relationship with mr ralph that has helped bring about this political change in me, although we disagree completely about several issues, mainly the war in Iraq. But what I have begun to do is open my eyes to the world and have begun to see how bad things are in America and how bad things could get globally if he is not taken out of office. I don't know very much about Johh Kerry. I would be the first to admit that he is not so much the right canidate as Bush is the wrong one. We cannot allow Bush four more years to ruin healthcare, destroy our environment by appointing lobbyists, and sit back and reap all the benefits of his huge tax cuts for the wealthy.

During our trip to America recently I spent a lot of time in museums as you can imagine since mr ralph is getting a PhD in history. At the D Day museum in New Orleans you can see posters from WWII when Americans were asked to conserve spending so the government had enough money to fund the war. What is Bush doing? Conserving or spending us deeper and deeper into debt that we may never see the end of? While the poor are getting poorer the fat are getting fatter. The super rich love Bush and that is why he has all the funds he needs to continually smear Kerry, or anyone for that matter that jeopardizes his hold over the country.

One of the things I despise most about Bush is how he tries so hard to be every man's man yet he has always been a man of leisure. How can he afford to live on permanent holiday and go fishing and hunting all the time? Because he is a rich, greedy man who has no qualms about persuing his main interest, himself. At one time I was at an odds about his intellegence. I still am not convinced he is running the show.
I truly believe that it will be a very dark day if he is re-elected.

I have to say I have been pleased with the debates so far. In this second one Bush looked even more like a raving lunatic than in the first. I thought it very disrespectful the way he stood up and pounced on the mic before Senator Kerry even finished answering a question, and I thought it a HUGE error to not answer the question where he was asked to give 3 mistakes he has made in office. He leaped to his defence and started babbling about how he did not make a mistake in invaiding Iraq. If he is not willing to admit mistakes, he is not capable of fixing them.