"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." P. J. O'Rourke
An alternate perspective... A Republican and a Democrat were walking down the street when they came to a homeless person. The Republican gave the homeless person his business card and told him to come to his business for a job. He then took twenty dollars out of his pocket and gave it to the homeless person. The Democrat was very impressed, and when they came to another homeless person, he decided to help. He walked over to the homeless person and gave him directions to the welfare office. He then reached into the Republican's pocket and got out twenty dollars. He kept $15 for administrative fees and gave the homeless person five. Having worked in Government under several different administrations from liberal to conservative, I can promise you, those polarized along party lines are exactly the same when you look beneath their ideology. The moderates, who are few and far between, are the only ones with any common sense, yet, since they don't toe the party line, they don't tend to make it very far up the political ladder. Anyone who believes Bush is worse than Clinton (or vice versa) need only look at the statistics (economic indicators, dollars spent on aid, military spending, world wide poverty levels, number of deaths in the third world) from any given administrations run. On the whole, things don't tend to change very much. There are alot of people who make money on the status quo and they spend alot, within both parties to keep it that way. The only true liberals and Democrats are very far from political office. Power corrupts, folks and absolute power has the same effect wether the person is a Dem. or Rep.