What I did

I was leaning towards Dean for the MoveOn primary but chose Kucinich in the end, mainly because of my friend Cheryl, who was lobbying for Kucinich, not so much because she thinks he can win the nomination but because she feels if he can increase his presence in the process then it will push the whole debate to the left. She included a message from a group called democrats.com that swayed me:

An interesting exchange occurred at Sunday's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Candidates' Forum, in answer to a question about the "Digital Divide" that separates minorities and the poor from middle class whites in computer access. Congressman Dennis Kucinich received warm applause when he declared: "As long as we're spending so much money for the Pentagon, and so little money for education, we're going to have all kinds of divides in this country. The only way we're really going to close the divide in this country is to start cutting the Pentagon budget and put that money into education."

Howard Dean spoke next and commented: "I don't agree with Dennis about cutting the Pentagon budget when we're in the middle of a difficulty with terror attacks."

That's a stark contrast on one of the biggest questions facing Democrats. Dean describes himself as a fiscal conservative adamant about balanced budgets. But if the soaring Pentagon budget is untouchable, are we being candid with voters about delivering them an enhanced domestic agenda that Democrats can be proud of?


Perhaps Dean just thinks that in these fearful times, saying you want to cut the Pentagon budget is a dangerous position, but of course the Pentagon isn't going to save us from terrorists, and Cheryl suggests he should educate people rather than pander to them.

Tomorrow MoveOn will tell us how the vote went.