I agree with everything, EVERYTHING, you say about the reasons for disillusionment, being so disillusioned myself. I might even add a few more points, as perhaps you would, too. For me, Bush was another in the long series of Republican candidates who did not quite satisfy, but who seemed better than the alternative offered by the other party. I would still vote for Bush, given the choice in the last election. I am not eager about any of leading candidates for the Republican nomination in the election coming up, and yet will probably vote for the Republican, whomever he might be. If there were another candidate from another party, who was overwhelmingly a better candidate, or who so completely articulated the politics I would like to see operating in U.S. government, I would vote for him. I do not see that person, yet.

However, I do not see the option of abstaining from from voting. In that, you merely join the vast apparently contented lot, or that discontented lot who complain, but do not participate. Voting is a duty, not a choice, the choice merely being in the candidates. When the choices are poor, you make the best of it and choose the least bad candidate. It grieves, but I think is the more honorable way to conduct ourselves as citizens.