Like it or not...

It all comes down to this day.

The last 6 months of sniping, attacking each other and trying to convince the public that the other candidate is 'more hopeless' than oneself culminate in voting today for the President of the United States.

Whether or not we like it, the votes of a few hundred million people today will impact the rest of the world for four years, and probably longer than that.

In one corner, George Bush stands pugilistic and defiant. Ready to swing at anything that he doesn't understand or wants to 'make an example of'.

In the other corner, John Kerry stands - what for nobody's sure, but he stands nonetheless.

I've never made any bones about it - I've not been impressed by Bush and his handlers - they strike me as a rather nasty bunch of people bent on success through subjugation. The whole Bush campaign has played on fear and misunderstanding of the world.

The Kerry campaign hasn't been much better - although at least Kerry gives me the impression that he might just think his actions through before jumping into something (like - say a war in Iraq). At the end of it all, I really don't know what Kerry stands for, only that he's the 'Not Bush' candidate.

Rather like the situation here in Alberta, I just plain don't like the incumbent candidates. For a variety of reasons, the stench of rot that comes from the intellectual gangrene that often seems to afflict those in power emenates equally strongly from both Washington and Edmonton these days.

Face it, America, you were lied to about Iraq. Iraq had nothing to do with WMD's, 9/11 or anything else that was put forth. In focusing on Iraq, your armies were distracted from the real threat - Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. (Who, it should be noted, popped up a few days ago on al Jazeera with still more threats.) So - how effective has Bush really been. From an outsider's perspective, he appears to have lost track of the original objective of going into Afghanistan, and left a key head player (bin Laden) free to do whatever he pleases. Is America safer for W's "War on Terror" - I think not.

Will Kerry be any better? No, probably not. But then again, Kerry starts with a relatively clean slate on the world stage. Just maybe he can involve enough other countries to help clean up the mess that is in Iraq. Remember, W's little war is costing billions of dollars each day, and each day of that excursion is adding to the US deficit (and debt). In investment banker's terms - what's the ROI? What is America gaining by prosecuting war in Iraq? Do the rewards make up for the cost? Can you afford that cost? (Can your children??)

Kerry sounds like a hard-core protectionist - a man whose idea of free trade is likely to be even less accomodating than Bush's approach to the subject. Canada and Mexico in particular stand to bear the brunt of his economic policy, and yet certainly the majority of Canadians seem to be firmly behind Kerry - mostly as a reaction to Bush and his pugilistic approach to the world, I suspect.

This election feels a bit like Groundhog day in February. It's either an early spring, or four more years of W, and the shadows of his ill-conceived 'War on Terror'.

Whatever happens, I wish the world luck today, for its future is being decided by a mere few hundred million in one country.