But I have to comment on something else: I see comments all the time about there not being “much difference” between the parties.

I can never understand it, because I see a vast difference between the parties, including some topics I feel very strongly about like:

-Pro-choice vs. Anti-choice (with a bunch of really old Supreme Court justices.)

-Pro-environmental regulation vs. getting rid of them

-Pro-civil unions vs. Pro-rewriting the Constitution to make 10% of our population second-class citizens

-Pro-assault weapons ban vs. NOT

-Pro-separation of church and state vs. NOT

-Pro rolling back tax cuts for wealthy vs. making them permanent

-Raising the minimum wage vs. NOT

-Raising the cap, but keeping the Estate tax vs. Repealing it altogether

-Allowing drug importation and government negotiation on drug prices vs. NOT

I write about this topic on my blog a lot; here’s one specific post from which I took those issue differences above:

http://sccdp.org/blogentry.php?linkID=http://sccdcc.mn.sabren.com/mt-static/archives/issues/000881.html

We also have a 1-page handout, suitable for printing out, on the critical differences between the parties that you can find (among other interesting ones) here:

http://sccdp.org/talkingpoint_index.php

I think it is the easy cynical, skeptical way out to say, “oh they are all the same.” But, it’s not the reality. Is it true that every candidate and every party will likely have positions you can’t get behind 100%? Yes, that I will say is true. And it puts each one of us in the position of prioritizing our positions and knowing what our litmus test issues really are.

For me, I cannot vote for someone who is anti-choice, but I have voted for candidates who support the death penalty, even though I don’t.

I supported Wes Clark in the primaries, even though I thought his position on flag-burning was lame.

Anyway, you may not agree on all of the positions on issues that I list above. But they are not the same positions.