Well, I'm sure this is all about benefitting our society, particularly those most vulnerable, and forming appropriate public policy in order to improve the health and happiness and security of our citizenry. Certainly it's not about power and money. Politics is about making benevolent public policy, right? So, relax you guys.
In truth, politicians have HUGE egos and HUGE financial warchests that they use to enlarge their egos further by moving into positions of greater power. In truth, the skills needed to be a good STATESMAN are antithetical to the skills needed to successfully get elected. It's a game of appearances, and we will continue to find it unusual when an elected official actually handles their public policy duties properly once in office.
Voters are exceedingly ignorant, and that is necessary in order for certain kinds of people to get elected. Unfortunately, my fear and expectation is that appearances will be orchestrated in such a way that Mr. Bush might finally achieve the popular vote, and will probably receive the most electoral votes, regardless of whether those states tallied votes accurately.
In the meantime, Mr. Bush has moved us further away from the national security we need. Saddam and Osama hate each other and do not cooperate. They are greater ideological enemies than Bush/Osama or Bush/Saddam. And now the Arab world hates us more than before, and Al Quida has much better ideological ammunition.
Korea has WMD, supports Al;Quida and taunted Bush while he was making his Iraq invasion plans. So, a nation that was publicly flaunting its ability and inclination to make trouble for the free world was overlooked (in invasion plans) in favor of a nation with very thin terrorist ties but which is floating on a sea of crude oil.
And Sweden, for the last few decades at least, has been routinely regarded as having the highest, or nearly the highest standard of living on the planet. I'm not sure you can convince me that high taxes is a price too high for the goal of health, security and happiness. But in your typically-American supremely-important FINANCIAL analysis, you really should wait until the costs of health care and retirement in this country have been paid and are in balance. It's not about money, but voters think it is. And they think that the better Wall Street does, the better their lives will get. I'm fairly convinced that the exact opposite is true.