Yesterday, chrisishardcore posted about Marshall Whittman endorsing Kerry and wondered if this meant the moderate Republican was "heading the way of the dinosaur".

I disagree. Here are a couple of reasons why I think moderates should vote for Bush:

#1- IRAQ
Would John Kerry pull us out of Iraq? No. No matter who sits in the Oval Office next year, we will stay in Iraq. The absolute worst thing we could do is pull out and leave the Iraqi people at the mercy of the Mujhadeen. We have to finish what we started, and see the Iraqi people through to democracy and self-sufficiency. If we see it through to the end and Iraq becomes a self-sufficient, free country, it will be one of our country's greatest accomplishments in a long time. If we pull out and let the country collapse it will be one of the worst moments in our entire history.

So the important question is, "Which president would provide us with the strongest military?" I don't think anyone could seriously say John Kerry would make our military stronger. His Senate record of voting against military spending and weapons technology is unwavering.

The way John Kerry has badmouthed the war in Iraq will make it impossible for anyone at home or abroad to support him there. He promises to gather foreign support, but foreign leaders will never want to help him in a war he obviously doesn't believe in, and young men and women in America will never follow him to battle. When a president says unequivocally that he believes our cause is just, soldiers will go to battle at his command. When a president says this is the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, who wants to fight for him? The number of young people joining the military will completely dry up. If John Kerry is elected, there will have to be a draft.

It was a mistake by the Kerry campaign to make the Iraq issue his main focus. No matter how much he attacks President Bush's actions, he can never convincingly say he would be better to lead the war. Kerry has been forced to trumpet his four months in Vietnam unceasingly to try to make himself seem like a plausible military leader, but it just doesn't fly.

#2- HATRED
For years, Republicans have been referred to as "mean-spirited", but I have been shocked by the last four years of bile-choked hatred from the left. I keep hearing from left-leaning people how Bush is "the most hated president ever" or that the country is "united in hating Bush", when the truth is that Bush still enjoys a lot of support from the conservatives in the country, and what has changed is the depth of hatred from the left. The dialog from the left by people like Michael Moore and moveon.org just keeps making things uglier, and all pretense of civil discourse or disagreement has disappeared. Personally, I don't think the average American feels the same hatred the far left is sputtering about.

The horrible thing is that the Democrats have embraced this slide and made it into the mainstream of the party.

A vote for John Kerry is a show of support for this shift in the Democratic Party. I think it is important we not support this shift.