I’ve been a little sick this week and hoping that it’d go away before I left for Italy. Just in case, I’ve stocked up on Sudafed for the plane rides.

The New York Times has a good page on all the (Democratic) candidates in the 2004 election, as does Project Vote Smart.

In retrospect, it probably shouldn’t be too surprising that Kerry won the Iowa caucus – he’s a pretty stereotypical Democratic candidate. He supported the war, but now says it wasn’t such a good idea. He voted for the PATRIOT Act (how could anyone have?), but now says he’d let it expire. He’s your average, waffling, non-commital, Clinton-like democrat.

Interestingly enough, Edwards also voted both to authorize force in Iraq (i.e. voted for the war) and also for the PATRIOT Act, though the NY Times page on him doesn’t note that (at least not in the same way as it does on Kerry’s page – so much for unbiased reporting). They don’t seem too different.

Though I’m pretty interested in Dean, I can’t blame the public for not voting for him. There’s really very little information on him out there – he didn’t really do that much as governor of Vermont. Beyond that minimal voting record, we’re to judge him based on the things he says, and it’s pretty clear he’ll say whatever he thinks is necessary to get elected.

Of all the candidates, it’s sad (for me, anyway) that the one with a record to back up their rhetoric, will probably not climb out of the single digits for percentages in primaries. Kucinich (excepting his flip-flopping on abortion some years ago), actually voted based on his principles (against the PATRIOT Act and going to war).

Even with all the waffling and position-changing, I’ll happily take any of the democrats over Bush (for tons of reasons, including: increased spending on education and the environment, tax cut repeals, foreign policy that doesn’t buck common sense, increased civil liberties, etc.).

For more political fun, try the State of the Union drinking game. For more depressing news on how GW is screwing the American people and probably lying about it on TV tonight, check out MoveOn’s Medicare Drug Plan fact sheet (with a decidedly liberal spin, of course, but rather large grains of truth).