Hey True Believer... NOT TODAY

So, soon it will be time to vote. Time for you to exercise your constitutional right to help to choose the leader of our nation. I just wanted to remind anyone out there who might have a touch of the idealist to perhaps spend November 2nd being a pragmatist.

I've touched this before, and Kevin Kostner touched it this week on Bill Maher, and if my Aunt Sarah were here she would chime in too to tell you that neither of these guys really blow up our shorts. That neither of them are inspiring, that neither of them will fix the real problems, that neither of them have vision, and that really for all intents they are the same.

Such is the litany of the Independents, Libertarians, and Greens. Its a depressing tale that asks for politicians to rise up above it, not to take the money, solve the problems at the root rather than salve the symptoms. This is the desire to have a candidate speak to us, not to interests, and to say the right thing instead of desperately avoiding saying the wrong thing. Here is the realm of publicly financed elections, single payer health care, and cars that don't run on gas.

Here is the desire of the true believer, the idealists paradigm of representative democracy. And all of these ideas and intents are lovely, BUT NOT ON ELECTION DAY.

Take these hopes and dreams and Wednesday start working on them again. Donate your money and your time to these absolutely worthwhile causes. Take your incredible energy into the streets, let your representatives know, and work to change the corporate culture. GO KID GO, but do it next week.

Election day, set aside the idealism for 24 hours and become the best case, become a pragmatist and put your vote where it can do some good NOW. Remember that even one step in the right direction is movement, and keep in mind how awful the current administration has been on all your issues. Take all that energy and turn it out for John Kerry and send the Bush administration packing. Do that, and Wednesday do your best to make the new administration miserable - but get the new administration first.