PUBLIC FORUM AN EFFORT AT BALANCE.

I couldn't believe my eyes when your choice for president appeared a few days ago. Fifty years ago, I began receiving the Green Sheet as a throwaway. Then little boys started coming around to collect, and I donated to their cause. In all this time, I have in frustration canceled my subscription several times because the editorials and letters were so far to the right.

But in the last 10 years, there seems to be a real effort to balance the editorials, letters and news. In spite of the venomous Rich Lowry, I find I no longer have to take two newspapers to get varying points of view. Although you still print a conservative paper in a conservative area, your editors have shown real guts in taking an unpopular stand among your readers.

- Laverne Williams

Van Nuys

Excoriating remarks

Thank you for flushing out all us complacent Republicans (``Kerry for president,'' Editorial, Oct. 24). It's about time we jumped into the political fray. I'll tell you what did it for me: John Kerry's excoriating remarks about the military. He has slurred the characters of every man and woman who is now fighting, or who has ever fought, for America.

My family has had members of the armed forces in every conflict since the Revolutionary War (yes, some have worn the uniform of the National Guard, and some would have given their right arm to land a Navy fighter on an aircraft carrier) and I deeply resent Kerry's inferences of cowardice and lack of patriotism. My vote goes for a statesman, right or wrong, not a gutter snipe.

- Vicki Wagner

Sherman Oaks

Courting disaster 

Thank you for endorsing John Kerry for president, even though California will vote to give our electoral votes to him. To elect Bush for another four-year term will be courting disaster. Not only will he appoint a judge to the Supreme Court that might vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade, but Iraq is a disaster and this administration doesn't have a clue as how to extricate us from this huge mistake.

The president says his faith and principle guides him in his decisions. I don't believe God is making these judgments and decisions. If we have four more years of Bush, then God will have to help us.

- Arlene Cadish

Agoura Hills

Useless alliance

I was amazed at your endorsement of Kerry for president. So far the only thing he has had to say is I can do it better than Bush. Unfortunately he hasn't said how. As for an alliance, we don't need to be allied with countries that only want to look out for their own best interests with no regard to the safety of the rest of the world. I'm glad we have a president who finally told them to go to hell.

- Jeff Clarke 

Simi Valley 

Can't have been easy

Re ``Kerry for president'' (Editorial, Oct. 24):

Thanks for having the editorial courage to say what needed to be said and to endorse John Kerry. It can't have been an easy decision for a conservative paper, and I appreciate your honesty and patriotism in doing so.

- Susan Cornner

Porter Ranch

Liberal judges

Re ``Kerry for president'' (Editorial, Oct. 24):

I think the Daily News prefers liberal judges on the Supreme Court when it endorsed Kerry for president. God help us.

- Bernard J. Jozaitis

Thousand Oaks 

Anti-big government

Your Oct. Oct. 24 editorial made a great case against voting for Bush. But you failed to show why we should vote for Kerry. Even Kerry is not for Kerry. If you don't want to just vote against someone, you need to consider third-party candidates. Are you a fiscal conservative? Bush has spent more money per household, in real dollars, than any president since Franklin Roosevelt.

Are you a civil libertarian or against the Iraq war? Kerry voted to authorize force in Iraq and for the Patriot Act, which violates many of our basic constitutional rights. Kerry is going to win all of California's electoral votes no matter what. Make your vote actually count. Send an anti-big government, pro-liberty message by voting for Libertarian Michael Badnarik for president.

- Bruce K. Bell

Moorpark

Selling us out

Re ``Kerry for president'' (Editorial, Oct. 24):

The Daily News' support for Jon Kerry does not surprise me in the least. Neither does the other half of the nation's support for George Bush. Neither are considering the single-most threat to America - illegal immigration.

Missing explosives. Unguarded borders. Both parties are selling out our national defense for corporate greed. Neither deserve anyone's support and when the next 9-11 occurs remember that neither cared.

- Laurien DuTremble

Northridge

CalPERS responds

Re ``Assemblyman plans to KO current CalPERS plan, set up 401(k)s'' (Oct. 18):

The idea that a 401(k) style retirement plan for public employees of California will help solve state and local government financial problems is misguided. Switching from a CalPERS-like plan to an ``every employee for himself'' plan would cost Californians dearly.

Public employees' current pensions by no means result in huge wealth. Some 400,000 California annuitants each receive a total annual retirement of $19,128, or $1,594 a month, and that's $94 more than the national average. And why would the state want to throw away a system in which 75 percent of all contributions to pensions come from investment returns and not out of taxpayers' pockets? It is foolish to cut off a capital spigot that pumps $18 billion into the California economy each year.

- Sean Harrigan

President

CalPERS Board of Administration

No on Prop. 71

Thank you for encouraging a ``no'' vote on Proposition 71 (Oct. 20). Since we are in such bad financial condition in California, why would anyone vote for $6 billion more debt, which California workers will have to repay ($3 billion bond, plus $3 billion interest on that bond). Why establish another bureaucracy ``California Institute for Regenerative Medicine'' that we will never get rid of?

Embryonic stem cells have already been tried and have produced only tumors. We have been growing unwanted tumors for years. Why aren't we saving the stem cells from the umbilical cords of every healthy newborn? It wouldn't hurt anyone. It is morally acceptable to all and would cost practically nothing in comparison.

- Agnes Peterson

Malibu

Pie in the sky

The Democrats tout the Clinton presidency as an ideal for the economy. Under then-first lady Hillary, the health care problems were to be solved in the first 100 days (with a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress); nothing was accomplished.

It is incredible that some believe John Kerry can solve this problem and all of our country's with no increase in taxes and to support the military and cut the deficit especially while regarding the cut-off earnings level of the wealthy versus others at $200,000 per year. Pie in the sky is more likely.

- Harris S. Goldman

Tarzana

Boston Kerry

John Kerry is acting like the Boston Red Sox. He's facing one of the slickest political spin machines ever assembled, with Karl Rove as the ace in the hole, and Kerry's now heading toward victory.

Why? Because Kerry, like the Red Sox, seems to get tougher when the road gets rougher. He's shown more guts, poise and passion in the closing weeks of this tight election than even his supporters such as me dreamed he had in him. That's why he will make a great president in these difficult times - he's got what it takes to win for our country.

- Kevin B. Berkery

Burbank