Our View

It wasn’t easy to choose.

Not for many of us and not for our country.

As they lined up to vote over the past two weeks, Americans

waited anxiously to see who would be their next powerful

leader.

And then they realized a powerful leader wasn’t an option.

The last two presidential elections have not come down to which

candidate was the best, but instead to which candidate was not the

worst.

We are the most powerful country in the world. We are on the

brink of discovery and the brink of exploration.

We need an obvious leader. But our two-party system didn’t offer

us one.

Neither presidential candidate managed to win the American

people’s hearts and minds, and now we’re stuck with another

election that was not completed on the day it should have been –

Election Day.

Regardless of who wins this year’s election, close to half the

country will be disappointed. Disappointment is inevitable when

politics are involved, but usually a distinct majority gets what it

wants.

Not this time.

Four years from now, we want to be able to vote for someone

about whom we are passionate.

President Bush has done some good things while in office, but

judging from the close election this year, he hasn’t done enough.

And Sen. John Kerry simply has not established himself as a strong

Democratic candidate.

We want someone who, while he or she might not stand for

everything we stand for, will unite the country, rather than divide

it along party lines. He or she should make people leap across

partisan lines because they believe he or she will lead them.

We have to make it through the next four years. But let’s hope

that in 2008 there is a candidate who people can be proud to stand

for, and not just stand with.