When you look at all the major candidates vying for the 2004 Democratic nomination -- John "when I was in Vietnam" Kerry, Howard "shoot from the lip" Dean, John "I'm not the Crossing Over guy" Edwards and Wesley "what's my position today?" Clark -- they all have several campaign promises in common. Should any of them somehow be elected President (that is, if frontal lobotomy becomes the "in" elective surgery to have between now and November), certain common policy changes would be enacted. That's assuming they keep their campaign promises even half as well as President Bush has -- he's managed to fulfill nearly half of them so far, and about 25% more have been blocked by Congress.  What policy changes would a Democratic President make?

All or most of the Bush tax cuts would be repealed under any of the Democratic front runners.  For the average person, this would merely have the immediate, direct effect of a tax increase, plus a return to the penalty for married couples and a smaller deduction for children. When they say they'll only raise taxes for "the rich", keep in mind that "the rich" is variously defined as anyone making over $200,000, $100,000, or $87,500 a year -- in a word, an average working couple or a moderately prosperous small businessman, in various parts of the country.  Repealing the tax cuts would affect all businesses, large and small; it would reverse the economic boom we've been experiencing, killing the recovery just as we get to the job growth stage. Stocks are now at a 31-month high mark, and even the dour Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, is confident that major job growth (always the last effect of a recovery) is on the way. (Howard Dean in particular has made it a point to say he will replace Mr. Greenspan  because he didn't speak against the "disastrous" tax cuts that are driving the economy upward like we haven't seen in twenty years.)  The effect would be to drive the economy back into recession, with spiraling inflation and unemployment, expanding the "victim" base for future Democrats.  You see, a Democratic President wouldn't use that increased tax money to help businesses. Each one of them has a plan for socialised medicine to fund.

Instead of encouraging job growth and encouraging companies to offer affordable health care to employees (thereby encouraging people to get off the welfare rolls and take those jobs "Americans don't want"), any Democratic President would use the increased taxes to fund a socialised medicine program.  If you want to know how well a government-run service operates in comparison with a private company, consider the efficiency and swiftness of the Post Office compared to Federal Express, which can get a letter or package anywhere in the USA overnight -- for a price. Those who can afford it get the faster, better service.  Almost every company already offers some form of private health care to its employees. It's part of  a standard employment package; one incentive to getting a better job is to get better health care.  A Democratic President would create a business-hostile America, and make all Americans dependent on the government for health care, running the program with another massive red-tape-strangled bureaucracy.  And speaking of bureaucracies... how quickly would a newly-elected Democrat President rush to kow-tow at the altar of the United Nations?

A Democratic President would either set up a quick puppet government and withdraw our troops from Iraq (leaving the Iraqis at the mercy of internal chaos fueled by their neighbors) or put them and the country under the control of the United Nations (leaving the Iraqis at the mercy of external chaos fueled by France).  For some unfathomable reason, the Democrats are unable to see how badly the UN has mismanaged Bosnia, running everything by external fiat and top-heavy bureaucracy. Four years after the war (as of October 2003), refugees are still afraid to return home due to ethnic violence, unemployment is at 57%, and problems with the electricity supply still plague the country.  Things are so bad under UN mismanagement that the people actually want their dictator back!  The sacrifices made by all the Coalition troops in Iraq will have been in vain, and Iraq will become an even bigger hotbed of international terrorism than Iran.

But France will pat us on the head, and dictators will stop fearing us, and that's more important than making the world safer and freeing people from tyranny... isn't it?  We can all go back to pretending that the world loves us, as we pretended all during the 1990's, while too many of those who smiled plotted our destruction.

And when the next 9/11 happens, we can bask in the faux sympathy of the world as our Democratic President makes stirring, empty speeches while we bury our dead.