Bad ideas.

Our election system has been criticized for being too polarizing. During the primaries, only the most politically enthusiastic people vote, and they're usually not representative of middle America. We end up with one candidate who is extremely conservative, and one who is extremely liberal. But that's not happening this time, and it's shaping an interesting campaign season.

It looks like we'll have either Clinton or Obama duking it out with John McCain for the presidency. Here's my question. Is it a good thing to have two candidates whose positions on the issues are substantially similar, both to one another and to moderates? Or do we want two vastly different candidates to choose from?

I'd rather the candidates' positions be similar. It encourages a deeper discussion of the issues, because if they agree on the surface, they'd have to discuss the subject further to distinguish themselves. Plus, we may even get a president who represents the country's general consensus, not a candidate who represents the most conservative of the Republicans or the most liberal of the Dems.

Although Pres. Bush said some good things about Huckabee today, here's a quote directly from Huckabee that demonstrates why he'd be bad for the country: "If you look at where our votes are coming from, they're coming from the people who are the most conservative."

BAD idea.