Seems like there is a group of people out there that can't get past whether someone is nominally liberal or conservative long enough to think about the underlying ideas.

When the dams were built, largely during the time of democratic administrations, they were built to further economic prosperity, enable farms to grow and factories to be built. Sounds to me like a fairly reasonable set of objectives. While I regret their impact on fish, I like cheap power and what it has done for our region. If you want to tar the democrats with providing jobs and helping the region to build wealth, go ahead.

Kerry has a fairly liberal voting record, because, surprise, he comes from one of the most liberal states in the nation. One interpretation of that might be that he feels obligated to support the policies that his constituents want. Which is a sharp departure from Bush, whose stated style is to do what he thinks is right, regardless of what the US voter wants. There are pros and cons to either style. However, in the area of the environment, the vast majority of voters want clean water, clean air and a healthy environment. Kerry's style is more likely to support that goal than Bush's. For better or worse, Bush's record has been to roll back clean air and water protections, and to support partisan pressure on scientific opinions.

From my knothole, Bush's record thus far has shown that he and his team do a poor job of collecting hard data to support their opinions, and have often shown selective vision towards facts, using only those that support their position. This, plus their basic dishonesty (e.g., taking credit for recent salmon runs which spawned years before Bush was even thinking of running for president) would make me wary of him, even if I didn't think he was unintelligent, uninformed, and reckless.

Oops, now you know what I really think.