Also, I will agree the Democrats are like the Repubican party.  Not for the reasons the OP said...

but just because they're ineffectual and their attempts to fix things only lead to bigger holes, issues and problems.

This election will cause a deadlock and prevent anything from happening.

Which, you'd think would be bad for change... but when both parties ideas on fixing our economic boat is to shoot more holes in it....

Yeah.  Better to do nothing.

Spending doesn't fix a problem caused by spending.

Both main parties way out of an economic recession would be to use different spending measures and lowering taxes to stimulate the economy. Governments spend during an economic downturn and save during a booming economy. Spending is needed to generate jobs. Private spending drops off and job losses during an economic downturn. Government must spend more money to create demand and create jobs to keep the economy running. When economy recovers and private spending increases, then government spending decreases. 

Spending in the economy creates more  jobs and increases economic activity. A government not spending during an economic downturn would be a bigger mistake. Public works programs help stimulate the economy and creates jobs and benefits the nation. Deficit spending is good during an economic downturn lasting a year or two in a 7 or 10 year economic business cycle. Tax cuts plus deficit spending are good for the economy.

Public railway, public roads, public hospitals and public schools and other public community infrastructure are public works programs that benefit the nation. Wasting money on never ending wars overseas and expanding your defense force larger than the Roman Army is  waste. $1 billion per day of the US national budget is  being spent on the US Defence budget.

 Who are you voting for? Personally, this questions aggravates me. Why? Because it is framed within a distinctly Hegelian framework. This framework consists of the confining dialectics of left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, and, of course, Democrat vs. Republican. The latter of these dialectics is, for me, the most frustrating. Why? Because there's no real difference between Republicans and Democrats.

"The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea. Instead the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can 'throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy…It should be able to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which … will still pursue with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies."

Obama has promised a lot of things, but America's withdrawal from Iraq is not one of them. In fact, Obama has pledged to maintain a military presence in Mesopotamia to prevent al-Qaeda from establishing a foothold there. Behind Obama's messianic facade is the same imperial hubris endemic to the Republican Party.

The purpose of a two party system is the maintenance of a political cartel. Within such a framework, viable alternatives are overlooked and the same logically bankrupt status quo remains enshrined. To qualify this contention, I will briefly examine one major issue that occupies the mind of the voter: the war. To be sure, this is not the only point of convergence for the Democrats and Republicans, but it is one of the most transparently fraudulent dichotomies on the political landscape. The dominant perception holds that Republicans are "hawks" while Democrats are "doves." However, history does not bear out this dualistic portrait.

It was Republican President William Taft who endeavored to keep America out of unnecessary and costly wars. Now, under the sway of Jacobin-esque neoconservative warmongers, the Republican Party supports militaristic campaigns abroad and a meddlesome interventionist foreign policy. A natural correlative of this ongoing war has been the expansion of an already burgeoning government. Gee, aren't Republicans supposed to oppose Big Government?

Look for more of the same with a McCain presidency. John McCain has candidly stated that the so-called "War on Terror" could last a hundred years. This statement carries with it some truly Orwellian implications. Those who have read 1984 will recall the centrality of perpetual war to the maintenance of a police state. In light of the unprecedented infringements on civil liberties facilitated by the Patriot Act, it would appear that dystopian fiction is becoming an ominous reality. Historically, external threats have provided an expedient pretext for the dismantling of individual freedoms.

This contention was eloquently synopsized by James Madison in a letter to Thomas Jefferson. In that letter, Madison wrote, "Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad."

The best decision is to not vote and just let nature run its course. Having your fate decided by others is fine. Anyway what difference will it make if you vote or do not vote? Urban street legend has it that the US Federal elections have been rigged every election since JFK stole the 1960 election from Richard Nixon. 

At the end of the election one of the two main parties will run the country. 

I have a sneaking suspicion that PS3beats360 = numonex.

Bingo. He screwed up by even trying bipartisan leadership after the Republicans clearly indicated that they wanted nothing more than to be wreckers, to avert legislative agendas and then blame the Democrats for Republican intransigience

Should've tightened the leash in the Democratic party too, really. Then we'd have a real health care bill to resemble a real country's health care system, not this middle-of-the-road crap

Obama knew very well how fierce partisanship is in D.C., and despite his campaign trail promises to change the tone, poisoned the well immediately after taking office when he said, "Shut up. I won." He had no intention of working with Republicans, and the idea that he wasted all kinds of time trying to reach out to them is just fiction. Trying to get Olympia Snowe to vote for your agenda =/= bipartisanship.

To your second point: what would you have done exactly? Many moderates and Blue Dogs simply weren't going for it. It's no mystery why, especially now that everyone can see plain as day just how false were all the platitudes their leadership tried to feed them about how people would learn to love the bill and they'd be rewarded in the midterms. The Dems had to pull every trick in the book to just barely push any kind of bill through, and when they couldn't revist the bill in the Senate after Scott Brown's election, the whole enterprise was thought to be dead. You're simply not dealing with the political reality with which Obama was faced, and thus are not giving him enough credit.

anyone who thinks Obama is a Marxist/Socialist would have to be so ignorant and stupid that it beggars belief

LOL.  This is the revisionist history of Republicans on how things happened.  Reality tells a different story.  If you think the Republicans were ready to compromise and were willing to help Obama, you weren't paying attention.  The reason they went to Snowe and a few other moderate Republicans was because after a while they finally woke up and realized that all they were getting was stonewalled and that there was no chance for compromise from anyone else in the republican party.

I love that Republicans basically tried to block EVERYTHING Obama and the dems tried to do and yet republicans still blame the other side for not compromising.  Now that they will have the house, they may actually have to compromise more as they will be partly responsible for what laws are passed.

How did Obama reach out to Republicans for cooperation? By telling them he didn't mind fixing their fuck-ups but he didn't want to hear a peep out of them while he did it? By pushing an agenda with which he knew they disagreed, and not even meeting with their leadership about striking a compromise on ambitious new legislation?

Sarcasm aside, I'm genuinely curious where all this "Obama is a uniter, not a divider" bullshit originates. So, please. Do tell.

Unrealistic and a little bitter on my part, i'll grant. I'm just mad that the Democrats blew their one chance to really get this done in a while, but of course now that it's through the door, we can work to fix it, and if all these Tea Party freshmen are true to their own cause, hopefully work within the system to cut health care costs (though they seem more determined to slash at benefits, but time will tell if they really get anywhere, or end up like the Contract With America of 94)