There have been some really thoughtful responses. I don't necessarily agree with each and every one, but they have all been worthy of some thought.

Personally, I have some pretty solidified thoughts on issues such as immigration, energy dependence, government spending, campaign finance, education, health care and education. It'll be pretty easy to choose a candidate (for President, at least) who agrees with me on most of those issues.

Where I'm a little less certain is on the issue of what to do about Iraq and the Middle East. I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell that us hanging around Iraq for 1 or 10 or 100 years is going to result in a region that is stable politically, economically and religiously. There will be a civil or religious war when we leave and that will happen whenever we leave. In fact, there may be more than one war. It could be the Shiá against the Sunni's, or the Turks against the Kurds, the Iranians and Iraqi Shiá against everyone else, or some combination of the above against Israel. If we could afford to stay there and were willing as a country to pay the price in blood and treasure, we'd have an outside chance of at least keeping the potentially warring factions apart. But we can't afford the cost to stay and we aren't willing to sacrifice more thousands of young Americans for that purpose. As a nation we want to "win and go home" and that's simply not going to happen.

What will happen if we leave? Will the various factions war with one another? Sure. Do I care? Not really. They've been killing one another off for centuries. The region has the economic development at the same level that the U.S. had when the Pilgrims were here. Militarily, they're not much better off. Without the weapons and materials we brought there, they'd still be warring with WWI guns, shooting from horseback. About all they have that we need is oil, and that's pretty concentrated in only a couple of countries in the region. I'm convinced that if we'd get off our butts as a country, we could reduce that dependence on foreign oil very, very quickly.

Do we need to keep watching what China, India and Russia do with regard to the Middle East? We sure do. But as long as we're fully tangled up in the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have very little ability to address those emerging world powers as we should.

Am I worried that al Quaeda will create training bases in Iraq if we leave? I wouldn't be any more worried if our soldiers were there or if they weren't. I'm convinced that al Quaeda IS training terrorists in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and even Pakistan. I'm equally convinced that us keeping 150,000 young men and women over there isn't slowing al Quaeda down very much. I might even argue that if the Arabs were busy killing one another, they'd be less inclined or interested in sending terrorists over here to kill us.

Keeping our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as an occupying army is having the effect of creating a whole generation of blood enemies willing to commit jihad against America. (Please, no one try to convince me that we're really not an occupying army.) When one considers that in 20 years or so both France and Italy will be majority Muslim, and England will have a meaningful Muslim population as well, the prospect of a generation of highly-motivated jihadists who will have metasticized throughout Europe as well as the Middle East becomes more worrisome. The things that are motivating such hatred must be removed. And that's us keeping our soldiers in the Middle East.

Do I believe that getting out of Iraq will cause us to be at greater risk of terrorist attack than if we stay? I'd have to conclude, NO. I think the greater risk is that our political and military actions will foment the hatred of a worldwide generation of Muslims and that WILL increase the risk of terrorism here at home.

I guess that just writing this is beginning to help me choose which candidates will be more likely to address the issues that I think are important in a way that I think might work.

Do I expect all of you to agree with me? No. Will I be upset if you don't agree? Not at all. Each of us has to go thru the process of thinking thru the issues, the possible solutions and which people seeking our political support might best resolve those issues. What's really scary is that none of us is likely to know what the best course of action will be. It'll be our children and grandchildren who will deal with the outcome of actions taken during this generation. My guess would be that if there's another Tom Brokaw in high school somewhere in the U.S. who might write a book about our times in a few decades, chances are we won't be collectively viewed as a very great generation.