Some observers say Americans will lose interest in this year's presidential race because the starting gun for the two-man race went off long before expected. Now we could face months of boring campaigning with little substance from either candidate.

But I think those observers are wrong; there is too much at stake for people to stick their heads into the sand.

I'm not only referring to the economy, the war, education and the environment. It's the tone of our nation that's at issue.

Since Jan. 20, 2001, the ascending character of the United States has changed both within its borders and in foreign perceptions. Losing the respect that may have clung to our nation in its role as the world's policeman, now we're the SWAT team willing to use its powerful military to overthrow other nations.

At home, we hear talk about banning some marriages, arresting people for using medicinal marijuana, the FBI checking on what books suspicious citizens are reading and other assaults on civil liberties.

People are going to have to decide whether they want a country that's increasingly exclusionary or one that embraces our freedoms.

Too much of our national dialogue these days is about banning this, outlawing that or legalizing something else. It's about the president's dictum that you're "either fir us or agin us." It's about using lies about "terrorism" to justify aggression abroad and snooping on people at home.

It's about leaving too many millions of people without health care. It's about using a wardrobe flap on the boob-tube to push forward with new censorship measures. It's about funneling money to schools for food and remedial help while too many children's parents slave for minimum wage without hope of the prosperity they see advertised around them.

It seems both major parties are trying to make jobs the big issue. It's obvious that jobs are lacking because most products people buy are not made in this country. They are manufactured more cheaply in China or Mexico. An unplanned economy has not been able to adjust to a new era, and it's not clear it will anytime soon.

But barring a significant turn in the economy, most Americans probably will conclude they are doing OK compared with the recent past.

Health care is different. Even if people are working, the money they must pay up-front for dwindling health-insurance coverage hurts both them and their employers. And far too many people don't have any health insurance at all, leaving them just a minor misfortune from financial ruin.

Some experts say the solution is a national, single-payer health insurance system. They likely are right, but such a major change on the backs on the big health-care and pharmaceutical corporations is not going to occur without a long struggle. Sen. John Kerry, at least, gives lip service to this option, though it is likely his presidency would not live to see it.

Many people thought the Iraq war would fade away as an issue in the election, especially with Kerry, who voted for the war, as the Democratic nominee. It's becoming increasingly apparent, however, that our leaders in Washington lied to the nation and the world to gain support for the invasion.

And with the terrorist threat more rampant than ever, the resources, both human and financial, dedicated to annexing Iraq should have been directed toward al-Qaida. We can only hope that another 9/11 here or abroad will not be the result of the Bush administration's obsessions and deceptions concerning Iraq.

The Iraq issue is not going to go away as long as some of our soldiers continue to come home in boxes or with missing limbs.

Ralph Nader's point during the 2000 election that Bush and Gore were like tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee was off the mark. Gore would not have invaded Iraq any more than Kerry would have.

Gore would not have targeted the Alaskan wildlife refuge for oil drilling, and he would have done much more about Midwest power plant pollution. Likewise Kerry.

Gore would have helped steer our economy toward new enterprises so our workers could have more technological skills as their old jobs were shipped overseas.

But we can't blame Nader for Gore's loss in 2000. All Gore had to do was carry his home state of Tennessee and he would have won. It is up to Kerry to fight harder than that and prove to voters before the election that he's not a fruit from the same tree as the president.

Cary Brunswick is managing editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at (607) 433-3055 or cary@thedailystar.com.