This Ohio Voter Is Edging Closer to Voting Third Party
I saw last night's speech. Maybe it will win Bush votes - but it likely cost him mine. I will not vote for a liberal hawk claiming to be a republican whose spending policies will result in higher taxes, and as I have written previously such a vote is not throwing your vote away. Here are Andrew Sullivan's thoughts in a post which largely echo my own feelings:

People like me who became conservatives because of the appeal of smaller government and more domestic freedom are now marginalized in a big-government party, bent on using the power of the state to direct people's lives, give them meaning and protect them from all dangers. Just remember all that Bush promised last night: an astonishingly expensive bid to spend much more money to help people in ways that conservatives once abjured. He pledged to provide record levels of education funding, colleges and healthcare centers in poor towns, more Pell grants, seven million more affordable homes, expensive new HSAs, and a phenomenally expensive bid to reform the social security system. I look forward to someone adding it all up, but it's easily in the trillions. And Bush's astonishing achievement is to make the case for all this new spending, at a time of chronic debt (created in large part by his profligate party), while pegging his opponent as the "tax-and-spend" candidate. The chutzpah is amazing. At this point, however, it isn't just chutzpah. It's deception . . . the only difference between Republicans and Democrats now is that the Bush Republicans believe in Big Insolvent Government and the Kerry Democrats believe in Big Solvent Government.

Well there is another difference - I believe Bush's foreign policy is enough to make rooting for him to win from my current standpoint. And as such I'll help campaign for him by holding signs etc., as I still prefer Bush over Kerry. But there is a difference between rooting for a president and voting for one, and when it comes to how I identify myself, I will not self identify with a party that is demagoguing gay marriage, restrictive on abortion, ossified on the war on drugs, and worse of all, bent on spending money like the social democrats of Europe. And that the crowd cheered almost all of these things last night, only makes my decision more firm.