My Conundrum

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2007
My Conundrum
Tue, 09-30-2008 - 4:43pm
We are an incredibly diverse country. We are different races, religions, backgrounds, customs, values and political beliefs. For this reason, we will never find the perfect candidate for President, able to encompass all our wishes. Our President must represent all of the people in our country (what a notion! A President representing his country?!). So my decision is to choose the candidate that will best represent not only me, but all of us. I will base my vote on the issues, choosing the candidate the most closely matches what I feel will best serve our country.

What is the most important issue to Americans? Survey says… The Economy! Ding-ding-ding! I do not believe in redistributing wealth. It appears that our candidates from both major parties have economic platforms that, in one way or another, redistribute wealth. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121319990210164643.html McCain subscribes to the idea that concentrating benefits to the top 10% of wealthiest Americans will most benefit our economy. Some might say that Obama’s plans to give tax cuts to the 81% of us that fall into the middle or lower class (he exaggerates – it’s 81%, not 95%) is a redistribution of wealth. I would favor either a flat tax or eliminating the income tax altogether and replacing it with some sort of consumption tax. Maybe Bob Barr is the answer to this issue. Sure would be fun to watch him overhaul the economy and return government’s role in it to how our founding fathers originally set it up. But Barr is a bit nutty on other issues. And he’s too much of a sexy beast with that hot mustache to be President. So I ask myself, from which economic platform will I benefit most? Until I win this weekend’s lottery, I most certainly don’t fall in that upper 10% of wealthiest bracket. And that policy hasn’t worked the last 8 years; I can’t imagine it would suddenly work in the next 4. Seems to me recent events have proven that the big money movers and CEOs are a bit too greedy to be expected to let the wealth “trickle down” to the rest of us. On to the next issue…

Foreign Policy and the War in Iraq. You can argue back and forth about which candidate has had lapses in judgment regarding the war in Iraq. Which was the bigger lapse? Voting for the war in the first place or not supporting the surge. Hindsight is 20/20 of course, and we all know now that Bush should’ve kept his eye on the ball and “stayed the course” going after the people directly responsible for pissing us off 7 years ago. Huge lapse in judgment, especially for those who actually listened to the statements by the CIA, the DIA, the Department of Energy, the INR, the Institute for Science and International Security, or the U.S. Air Force director of intelligence. For more background, see “Iraq's WMD controversy” on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_War#2001.E2.80.932003:_Iraq_disarmament_crisis_and_pre-war_intelligence One might argue that Obama was wrong in not supporting the surge which, if we lower our standards of what we were promised it’d do, was successful. Which is the bigger lapse in judgment? Which cost more? Going to Iraq - 4,489 coalition deaths, 30,642 U.S. troops wounded, over 95,000 Iraqi civilians, and $400 Billion. Do we remember the purpose of invading Iraq? Rid the country of Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. So now we’re…? Cost of withdrawing troops instead of the surge? Umm… Iraqis are forced to deal with their own messy country (messy centuries before the invasion in 2003) and we can now re-focus on the War on Terror (encompasses several countries), perhaps go after those directly responsible for 9/11, perhaps have increased military clout when dealing with issues and conflict with countries like Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Somalia, Algeria, Lebanon, etc. I rather like a leader who will use diplomacy whenever possible and makes decisions based on our country’s overall global strategy. Big picture.

Abortion. Ooooo… touchy subject. We are a nation of many faiths and those with no faith at all. This is a fact. This is the reason we have the First Amendment and the separation of church and state. Some believe abortion is a moral or religious issue. Some believe it is no different than the killing of an adult. I personally believe in the latter. I am Pro-life, but Pro-life in EVERY regard. Sanctity of life applies to unborn children, innocent lives lost in war-torn countries, wrongfully convicted persons on death row (if our justice system always got it right, we wouldn’t be releasing prisoners based on new DNA evidence), innocent children in our own country whose broke-ass parents can’t afford to feed them, take them to a doctor, or live in an area with a decent school. I suppose Mrs. Palin actually comes closer to my belief regarding abortion. But, that woman has a room temperature IQ, so… (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080925/ap_on_el_pr/palin). Plus, she is quite pro-death penalty and believes in absolutely no gun controls. Pretty hypocritical in my view. Not sure how you can argue that the government needs to keep their noses out of gun issues because, hey, it’s not guns that kill people, it’s people that kill people. God will hold accountable the people that kill others with guns or are irresponsible with their guns causing the accidental death of a neighbor child. Ok… but the government should by all mean put their noses in the lives of women’s bodies rather than letting God hold that woman responsible for the choices she makes? Instead of locking up murderers and throwing away the key, we’ll trust the government to judge and kill them rather than letting God hold that person accountable? Whatever. By the way, why do we need automatic weapons? 750 rounds per minute kind of takes the “sport” out of hunting, doncha think? That’s not hunting, that’s cheating. :P Or maybe because in 2012 when the world has been overrun with flesh-eating zombies, we can take out hundreds of them in mere minutes? I am Catholic and the Church teaches that abortions are wrong in every situation. McCain supports abortion in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is at stake. So why do Catholics support McCain? Because, they say, he most closely matches our values; the lesser of two evils. Ok. I agree with that argument. But not on ONE issue alone, I’d be a fool to base my vote on only one issue or believe that issue is the only one that will impact our country. So, I guess I’ll have to choose the “lesser of two evils” based on all the issues. Moving on…

Honesty. Hopefully this campaign has taught us all to dig a little further to find out the truth. By now we’re all familiar with snopes.com, politifact.com, and factcheck.org. Worst offenders are summarized here and go across party lines. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/rulings/pants-fire/ Interesting. Incidentally, I also fact-checked last week’s debate. Turns out McCain didn’t know his “good friend Kissinger” as well as he thought! But, alas, Obama was wrong about McCain’s health care plan costing employers taxes. It will actually cost the workers. http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_debate_no_1.html Thanks, but no thanks.

Hillary said it best when she stated, “I think the world will breathe a sigh of relief when this president is gone.” Amen, Sister. In all actuality, I believe either candidate will improve upon the crap our country’s been through the last 8 years. But which candidate will make the most improvements? Such a dilemma!!! Maybe I’ll just vote based on IQ…