I've lived in Northern California (Bay Area) now for eleven years and two weeks. In that time my voting registration has always been "no party." That changed last week. I changed it to "Democratic." Silly as it may sound, this was a decision I did not take lightly. It may just be the last remaining element of who I used to be: an idealist with a contrarian streak. I've been firmly planted in the real world for those eleven years, out of the comfortable cocoon of the know-it-all armchair quarterback finishing his undergrad degree. I guess I do have some idealism left. I still play in a rock band, and juggle day jobs that I am underqualified for in between tours. That soon will end as well and within two years it is likely I will be a father. With all of this I have become more pragmatic. I'm getting that sense from a lot of people whose political leanings I share. Where we once flatly declared that the two party system was a sham and other such things, I now fully admit that the third party I had always hoped for was nothing but a ghost. None of the parties in existence today are without their faults. So the question becomes: which one is closest to my beliefs and has any chance of winning and actually delivering people whose governance I can feel comfortable with? With Clinton I felt that way and had the luxury of looking beyond the "great compromiser" for something a little more left-leaning. Now I am to the point where even Lieberman would be a better choice than Bush. Is this the language of someone defeated by his own reality, or is it the language of someone who is older and wiser? If I had this conversation with my 22 year old self, fresh out of my '77 Plymouth Fury into my first apartment in San Francisco, I have a feeling we would reach an impasse on this subject.