this speaks louder than any poll.
Livingston County is troglodyte conservative territory
Editorial
Livingston County Daily Press Argus
http://www.hometownlife.com/Brighton/News.asp?pageType=Story&StoryID=59997&Section=Editorial&OnlineSection=Editorial&SectionPubDate=10/17/2004For president, John Kerry is the true conservative
Choosing the president of the United States is, in many ways, the most solemn and important duty a voter has - and it is a choice that should never be taken lightly. Nor should, all things considered, an incumbent president ever be easily turned out of office.
Livingston County is a mostly conservative place and we like to think of ourselves as a mostly conservative newspaper. But think about what that proud word "conservative" means.
Essentially, it means to honor and preserve the values and traditions that have made this nation and our people great. Ronald Reagan was such a conservative. So were Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gerald Ford and George Romney and Bob Dole.
But what are conservatives to make of an administration which, in less than four short years, turned record federal budget surpluses into record deficits that suck up money needed for private business expansion at home and threaten crippling inflation in years to come?
What are we to make of a president who rushed us into a war for reasons that we now know were false? We are now bogged down in this war with no end in sight and no realistic plan for victory. This war has strained our ancient alliances with many Western nations, and has helped give comfort to our real enemies.
Too often, this president and this administration have behaved with surprising recklessness at home and abroad. And alarmingly, this president never once has been able to admit he has made a single mistake.
That description sounds like a parody of the liberal administration of Lyndon Johnson. But it is in fact what has happened to this country under the stewardship of George W. Bush.
For all these reasons, we endorse U.S. Sen. JOHN KERRY for president. Kerry is, in fact, the conservative choice. The bottom line on Vietnam is that he volunteered, he served his country, he won medals, he was wounded and he could have been killed.
He has since served in the U.S. Senate for 20 years, acting most of that time as a cautious moderate, respected on both sides of the aisle. He builds coalitions and seeks solutions to the kind of problems afflicting everybody.
President Bush prefers to go it alone, or almost alone. This is risky behavior in the terrorist-plagued world in which we now live.
John Kerry would be a better choice to take over the task of moving the war in Iraq to a solution, while redirecting the focus of the war on terror to our real enemies - Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.
We need leadership, too, that will help position our nation's economy to compete in this new century, with an eye on the environment, our most precious resource.
The next four years are also expected to bring several new vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court. Our belief is that a President Kerry would be more apt to pick judges the way a president should - based on judicial competence rather than ideology.
Those who knew Kerry in his days as a tough young prosecutor, by the way, laugh at the idea that he wants to coddle criminals.
The bottom line in this election was best expressed by a Republican with a famous name. Ambassador John Eisenhower, son of the president, is endorsing a Democrat for the first time in his life. "The current Republican Party leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance. Senator Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust, has demonstrated that he is courageous, sober, competent and concerned."
This newspaper agrees. On Election Day, we urge a vote for John Kerry for president.