Nu2salt, I have said that I have been astounded that Kerry would make his Vietman record a center piece of his early campaign and allow his campaign to bash Bush's service. That is how all of this started. I would be very happy to let sleeping dogs lie on both candidate's military record. I would rather be on the hunting thread. It was over 30 years ago and people change but once it came up there were a lot of holes in both campaigns that politicians wanted to fill and as a vet with knowledge about how this stuff works I couldn't help myself.
Anyway, there are other issues to debate and not much more to add to this issue. For instance, I have watched a few mid-west focus groups and the common Kerry negative is gun control, trust and confidence, and the terror threat. You would think that social issues and the economy would be more in people's mind.
I have no idea how this election will turn out but it is more Kerry's to lose than Bush's to win. If the Democrats had a candidate who could debate like Kerry and was moderate in scope, with a moderate platform, they would win hands down. If they lose the single biggest issue will be gun control just the same way Gore lost important states including his home state of Tennessee. It will be interesting to see how it unfolds.