I agree with your sentiment regarding the political direction of the OT forum, though I can't understand, why normal a discussion with different views and opinions always has to lead to the question, if someone is republican or democrat - I hope, you americans are all democrates in the meaning of the word...

But I wanted to add something:

This week one of Germany's top news paper (liberal-conservative, you might call it) wrote, that the official number (brought by the Bush government itself) of the additional debt in the US is incredible 3,200 billion dollars!

There is no doubt, the US have to reduce their expenses in order to return to their old economic strength - and whoever will be president should get the best economic experts by his side to repair, what Bush junior destroyed. BTW, his father did a lot better economic wise during his time as president...

And another BTW: I'm not a socialist or communist...lol