This time I registered plenty early, and voted early, too. Now no matter what happens, I can feel good about doing my part for the next four years. I'd say that was time well spent.
In 2000 a vote for a foreign policy of peace was a vote for Bush. That was his line. Gore was the one who had been threatening Indonesia and getting us dragged into messes in the Balkans. He as much as promised more military action abroad. This all goes to illustrate the ultimate meaninglessness of the campaigning.
Bush 2000 = "We don't do nation-building".
Bush 2003 = "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."
Nixon was elected to end the war. Instead he bombed Cambodia. Reagan pulled a 180 on middle east policy and withdrew from Lebanon.
With the possible exception of LBJ I think every president in recent history has contradicted their indicated foreign policy. (LBJ was just bonkers from the get-go.)
Bush's adult life was: Daddy got him into a good university, which he did nothing with, went AWOL, daddy made it all good. Spent and lost lots of other people's money, went through rehab, became a religious fundamentalist, then ran Texas.
Gore's adult life was: Enlisted to please his father, volunteered to go to war out of a sense of obligation, ran for elected office to do what he felt was his obligation to follow in his father's footsteps. Served as a public official his entire adult life.
If you think that those two life stories are "the same" or that their campaigns can inform you more than that, I don't know what to suggest to you.