hmmm, politics, do I really want to start down this road? do I really want to expose myself, to show my true colors, to show how naive, how ignorant I may be of national and world affairs? why not? a public forum, matter on record, forever, somewhat, maybe, engraved on the minds of strangers, friends, peers and family members. To see what I think, not to sway, but to see. And so I start.

So I started looking at politics online:

• Politics1 - among the first google search results for something like presidential nominees. Fairly informative. I need to do some more research for background on it, who runs it, cross check some of the information, that sort of thing.
• OnTheIssues.org - another one that came up. Basically I ended up here to see what John Kerry's stand on abortion was. Why? Because John Kerry is a Catholic. And how does he resolve his personal faith with the legality of abortion? By upholding the law. Interesting. I'm intrigued by this because I'm currently reading Executive Orders, which is really interesting, vision of remaking the government.
• Since I'm going to see Fahrenheit 9/11 I wanted to see what other people thought of it. all across the board. which I think led me to a documentary about a "documentarian" which led to a couple other places, like moorewatch and moorelies along with his personal site. Seemed to me like a battle field, rather than any sort of discussion.

So I'm just reading. Among my personal opinions before I start looking seriously at where to put my vote:

• majorities in the house and the senate. trends there as well. do similar party executive and legislative branches grease the wheels and get more things done? if so, I'm all for it
• the most change wins. no coasting for me. change, good or bad, begets growth somewhere down the line. good steps or bad steps, they're steps. action is better than inaction. it's more exciting. there's the idea of doing something.

so far that's what I got. This will be fun for me to read from start to finish after I place my vote.