The only thing that really bothers me about political discussions on CPF is the inevitable few hotheads. There have been some great discusions, and even folks like Hawkhkg served as a stimulating catalyst before he became too compulsive. It would be a shame if we abandoned these often fascinating dialogues; after all, if we could have hundreds of relatively civilized posts in that huge Science & Religion thread I believe that we can handle a political discusion. Some of those discussions got pretty hot, but rarely downright abusive.
That said, I can understand the administrator's caution with the Bush/Kerry topic because of this year's unusually polarized political atmosphere. You can almost hear the electricty crackling.
Brightnorm