While it feels like the election is right around the corner, if I look at my calendar I see that we still have seven months to go. So why the constant polls, the outburst of Watergate nostalgia, the treating of a rather lame witness as another Great White Hope John Dean?

I know that a lot of people hate Bush, and I am not in love with the man myself. But isn't it a bit early for such heavy-handed electioneering? I mean, what if the people get sick of the election before it even happens?

I'm already sick to death of the 2004 election, but since everyone wants to play what-if, I'll play along, because I want to factor in my deepest fears alongside the election results.

Excepting fringe types like Ted Rall who imagine that Bush will cancel the 2004 elections, I don't think there's much argument over whether there'll be an election in November, and at the risk of being an optimist, I think it's quite likely that either Bush or Kerry will be elected. (Just watch as my prediction comes true!)

My deepest fear is not whether the election will be held, but that there will be another terrorist attack in the United States during the next term. We saw what happened after September 11. A cacophony of voices -- left and right -- jumped on the bandwagon to take away as much freedom as possible. The result was the Patriot Act, which I see as a direct erosion of American freedom.

But next time around, there won't be as much freedom to erode. The question in my mind is, simply: under which president would there be a greater loss (hemorrhaging, even) of freedom, Bush or Kerry?

Partisans on each side will obviously claim that their guy would do more to preserve freedom than the other. I am less concerned with campaign promises than the practical dynamics of politics. A classic illustration of such dynamics was Nixon's rapprochement with China. Such a thing would have been impossible for a Democrat, because of the "soft-on-Communism" charge. But for Nixon, no problem. Ditto, Clinton's welfare reform, and other instances of his counterintuitive "triangulation."

I think if Kerry were president during another major terrorist attack, similar dynamics, by making him fear a "soft-on-terrorism" charge, might well cause him to jettison the civil liberties sensitivities he likes to voice. (Contrast his present qualms with the Patriot Act with the fact that he had no problem voting for it in 2001 -- when he was far from being president.)

With Kerry as president, Republicans would be unlikely to serve as voices of restraint or moderation on the terrorist issue that the Democrats would be expected to be if Bush continues as president. (Most likely, Republicans would be thinking ahead to 2008 and watching Kerry for any sign of weakness or softness, because that's how politics works.)

Bush, however, in addition to the ACLU wing of the Democratic Pary, would have to contend with disgruntled Republican libertarians as well as paranoid right-wing anti-globalists in his own party.

Would freedom's chances for bare survival would be better under Bush? My Machiavellian side suspects they would, counterintuitive as this sounds. I may be wrong, but the election's a log way off. Hopefully, so is another September 11.

And I haven't even touched on Second Amendment freedoms. (It wouldn't take much imagination, though....)