George:

I have to say, I agree with Rey Barry and Wat Ellerson on their recent emails to you. However my reason may shock some of your left-leaning readers. I really am disappointed with the Democrat's choice of nomination for their Presidential candidate. I really think Howard Dean would have helped put a real test in front of President Bush (which he would have passed). The American people deserve to really hear the exact plans of both candidates without interruption.

Senator Kerry has not made a real go of it during this election. We are all still hashing out the Vietnam War - which we can do from the sidelines. It's too bad that we are digging up past mistakes from each candidate when we should be uncovering what their future plans for all of us are going to be.

Howard Dean really energized the Democrats and would have made this election so exciting - and I am all in favor of good competition. I like it when the Republican Party has a good, strong opponent. Now it's like a college senior beating up a second-grader to steal his potato chips.

All I can do is hope that next time all of us have a field of people running so that the National Conventions really mean something, like they way they used to. We would have 3-4 candidates for each party's nomination and start the bickering in each party.

Nowadays it's all decided before the convention is planned.

So much for debate. Speaking of which, I am already not looking forward to them unless something exciting happens soon.

Will Lyster (electronic mail, September 23, 2004)