I was getting pretty hammered on Thursday night while the Prez was speaking. My roommate was occasionally yelling at the TV. I just kept thinking the Prez should point out the obvious: he was standing on the tip of a penis. Just, y'know, say it: "Has anyone noticed I'm standing on the tip of a penis?" It didn't really matter much to me what he said, I just kept looking at the stage with its thin shaft walkway up to the circular area at the tip where the Prez was speaking. Maybe it was the gin.

Is the Prez trying to be the cock, or is he about ready to come forth and spray his message of misinformation and military might all over the convention floor?

The Prez took at least a half an hour to even mention the war. I guess he wants to be the Peace President so much he's got to sweep the whole continuing war thing under the rug. Even though this is his whole rational for being re-elected. He's tough on terrorists. He's big on national security. He's taking the fight to the evil doers. He's even admitting mistakes were made now--but right after that, declaring he wouldn't have done anything different if he'd known what he knows now back then.

It's that whole having your cake and eating it thing, isn't it? Although, to be honest, I didn't understand why you would have a cake and then decide not to eat it. Seems wasteful, doesn't it?

But before he mentioned any of the killing and maiming he's been in charge of for the last few years, he started making promises about all of the social programs he was going to fix in his next term. Nevermind he already had four years to actually do something in this area. Nevermind in the last four years he's fucked up some of this stuff up by either not funding it or reconfiguring it so it costs more.

The day after his big speech, in which he trumpeted his health care policy for seniors, we all found out how he fixed Medicare: he made it cost more. A 17% increase in the monthly cost per senior. The highest price hike in Medicare history.

But I guess the speech worked because now the Prez has a nice lead in the polls. He got the post-convention bump Kerry couldn't wrangle after the Democratic Convention.

It makes me wonder where the people of America have been living in the last four years. Why is it more than half of the adults in this country--the most powerful country in the world--are cowering in fear of boogymen they would not be able to recognize unless the evil doers stood directly in front of them with a ticking bomb? Why are we going backwards--why do we have our heads stuck in the bomb shelter?

And, really, why is Kerry being such a pussy?

Why do you let a bunch of yahoos sully your Vietnam war record on behalf of a guy who didn't even go to Vietnam? How is it that the Prez can be virtually AWOL from his "duties" during the war, and its wrong to even bring that up. But questioning the conduct of Kerry during that time (30+ years ago) is taking down the Democratic candidate single-handedly. How do you not respond with a big "fuck you" to these questions?

I guess that's why I'm not running for office. I don't have the tact. But after a Republican convention almost completely about tearing down the Democrat candidate (and not really about the substance of anything constructive), how do you sit still and not respond?

There are two months left.

Did I make up my mind on who to vote for a long time ago? Yes, I did. No changing that because I'm voting against the President, and the best way to do that is to vote for Kerry.

Everyone talks about the undecided vote. If you actually know someone who hasn't made up their mind yet, would you let me know? I mean, are there other factors--important findings--that will come out in the next two months? And this will help those "undecided" people to get their act together?

Anyone who is "undecided" is fooling themselves. And I bet most of those undecided either have decided (but feel more important to the process to be "undecided"), or they aren't going to vote.

Whatever. We're into the turn of the season. We're moving into the end days. My hope is the Democrats still have a little fight left in them. Otherwise, they should have held onto some of the fire they had at the beginning of the year. It's like a marathon runner blasting ahead of everyone for the first four-fifths of the race and then collapsing because they didn't save any for the home stretch.

There's still time. It can go either way. It's not over yet. 58 days to go...

Matt Worley wasn't a cheerleader in high school, but he did date one.