A Bush Third-Term?

In the middle of Primary/Caucus season, I simply have to wonder, why would anyone want to vote Republican in the fall? If Bill Clinton had been the president for the past 7+ years, I'd be asking the same thing about the Democrats. Who would want to vote Democrat in November?

Honestly, outside of Ron Paul, who of the Republicans will differ much overall from George W. Bush's policies? John McCain, especially with a Democratic-led Congress, could make some progress in terms of environmental issues, but he'll be just as stingy in his war efforts, if not more so, than the current president. Mitt Romney may attempt to make some slight changes in regard to the economy, but is in favor of making the tax cut for the elite permanent, which in turn, damages the middle class. He may be in favor of some more private benchmarks than McCain, but will still press hard in favor of the Iraq War. Mike Huckabee will continue the Iraq War and may even add two new amendments, prohibiting abortion and gay marriage rights. Honestly, in all three potential scenarios, wouldn't electing a Republican in November really be extending the Bush term at least another four years? Why would we, as a country, want that? What has Bush done during his tenure that has been positive? Depending on whom you ask, we're either in or potentially headed toward a recession. Our image around the world is worse than it's been in years. The hatred of this country expands on a daily basis around the globe. U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians are dying by the day, nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers, and approximately 1,000,000 Iraqis. There's the mortgage crisis. Katrina. New Orleans still isn't fully recovered from that disaster. The most wealthy have attained more wealth and the middle class is shrinking on a daily basis into what is the lower class. The Constitution, to quote the present, "Is just a piece of paper," and has been treated as such, with the passing of the Patriot Act (sneak and peak and all), unwarranted wiretapping, suspending habeus corpus in the Military Commissions Act, etc. The No Child Left Behind Act has been anything but pleasing to schools and teachers across the country. Many environmentalists claim that the Bush administration has set us back at least 25 years due to their abuse of the environment. The economy, housing, education, environment, image, war, freedoms have all taken dives. That's not even taking into account all of the scandals or potential scandals: Valerie Plame, unwarranted wiretapping, illegal wars, Gonzo-gate, the Downing Street Memo, Gitmo, Guantanamo, the post-9/11 transports and torture, etc., etc., etc. After all of this, how can we look in the mirror and say, "Yeah, I'm going to vote for another four years of this"? Five of the past seven administrations in this country have been Republican and the two which weren't, during the Clinton years, were with a rather conservative Democrat who had a Republican-led Congress to work with. It's about time we alter our direction. Only 31% of the country approves of the job President Bush is doing. Just a minority of the people believe we are on the right track as a country. Keeping all this in mind, how/why is it that John McCain currently leads Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in their potential match-ups? Based on two polls I've seen, McCain leads Clinton by an average of 5 points, leading in both polls. In those same two polls, he leads Obama by an average of 3 points, leading one and tied in the other. Yet, by a 51-34% margin, the public prefers a Democrat to a Republican in the general election. I hope that number holds up in November as opposed to the other two polls I saw. The last thing I want to see is a third term for a Bush-esque candidate.