During the 2004 election, there were smear campaigns galore--the election became less about who would do a good job for the country and more about whose PR team was more efficient. Needless to say, as an American I was less than enthused about the candidates I was being forced to choose between:
A) a jingoistic, excuse-mongering incumbent with a deceptive War Cabinet and a pithy vendetta against Sadaam Hussein,
B) a smarmy, equivocal, rest-on-his-laurels politician whose resemblance to a Bassett Hound no less than foreshadowed his non-charismatic stance on important issues; or
C) The Ruiner of Close Elections, Mr. Nader himself.
(NOTE: I'm disregarding the lower profile candidates, because in bipartisan politics it seems almost ludicrous to regard them as worth having a shot at the Presidency.)

On top of that, stupid celebrities were wasting their breaths trying to get more people to vote. I saw commercials featuring Jennifer Aniston, the epitome of modern feminism, who urged me to take a stand as an unmarried woman and vote. P. Diddy threatened to murder me if I didn't make my way to an election booth, as he has ways of knowing who didn't show up.

One thing that struck me about the celebrities' ploys to appeal to the masses was a common saying, which was slightly altered but bore the same message:

"It doesn't matter who you vote for--just get out there and vote."

I'm sure that seemed innocent enough in all its electorally-minded zeal to most people, but to me (who tries to read subversion in almost everything), it struck some fascinating thought: Does it really matter who I vote for?

I'm convinced that (light conspiracy theory alert) there's something central at the hub of American politics and has been since the formation of such ideologies as neoconservatism (which I hear from many theorists are the centralization). There's so much debate as to what exactly neoconservatism dwells on (James Bryce wrote about the concept in Modern Democracies in 1921, and the notion has been argued about ever since). It's one of those things that extreme leftists are permitted to write about so the status quo takes their ranting for granted, and later the more "rational" (but probably right-affiliated) documentarians provide "solid evidence" refuting the existence of such a breed.

I'm not sure what the breeding grounds for neoconservative ideals are, but the more I learn of the associations and similarities between our presidential candidates, the more I'm convinced that American bipartisan politics is a cleverly-crafted, quasi-ideological demagoguery by whoever's running things around here, neocons or otherwise. It seems we're so caught up with the divisions of Red and Blue (which, if we really look at, are highly superficial) that we ignore the fact that both colors stem from the same spectrum.

If environment plays such a large role in the shaping of people (and it does), can it be possible for men to attend the same (or similar) institutions of higher learning, to have served in the same administrations under varying leadership, to reputedly belong to the same societies (e.g. Bohemian Grove, Bilderberg Group, Freemasons--I'm not going into the theories behind these groups, though), to share similar religious/spiritual beliefs and yet be so radically different in thought? If we really looked at the underpinnings beneath the major candidates we're expected to choose from, would we find that they're really so different after all?

So, does it really matter who we vote for?