Some of us have committed our votes already, gotten it out of the way. Why wait? I knew long ago that nothing was going to change my opinion of the only viable choice, and subsequent events, words and debates could not influence my vote further.
Some of these things I have asserted before:
No president we ever elect will be perfect or ideal.
No president will ever be best in every arena he or she must enter over the four years of the office.
Sometimes, we must look most at who we believe will do the least damage, or who has the strongest principles, or the most or least objectionable advisors. We can observe how one may be of greater or lesser influence in the world around us: we may be a large part of a continent, but we are not an island, isolated from all else passing on the planet.
The next President will not have nearly the power that we are misled to believe, to fulfill the promises of campaigning: It takes Congress and others working with or despite the President, and the sense or lack of it, of the American people, to determine how our economy will function. A President cannot pass laws alone, or decide all policies alone.
A body of antipatriots has proven its ability to sabotage the best offerings of a President, standing by its own stated declaration that their entire effort from the day of his election would be aimed at defeating him in the next.
We are all witness, aware of it or not, that a single truth out of original context, and spoken of by master manipulators, such as the people who 'handle' candidates, and candidates themselves, can become lies. Lying by misquote, by manipulation of truth, is the hallmark of campaigning, especially by those who lack substance of their own.
Campaigning for office is not the office itself. Persuading voters to vote for them is a candidate's job, but as we've seen this very week, it is not the job of the office itself. We've seen the President be President when and where we needed him to be. His choice in that matter, to drop the campaigning in order to do the job that is his for at least one more week, shows what we can count on in the future.
We have spent four years training a man of integrity, to do the job, we have some notion which way he will jump on a problem. And many of the things that are not as better as we'd wish them to be, were never in his power to make that much better. He announced from the beginning the intent to be everyone's President, not just his own Party's, and that in itself was refreshing. He did not appreciate, I think, just how cemented-in-place were the partisans he had to deal with, how much power they had, to sabotage, create obstacles, and lie, without accountability.
From a lame field of dogmatic irrationalists, America was offered... one of them. Not one in that field has the capacity or qualifications to be President. That candidate has been 'handled' this way and that, to appear qualified, to appear truly willing and able to represent the whole American public. And a lot of people--about half of the voting citizenry, it appears--are buying into it, because it is so much what they want to be true.
If that candidate wins, he truly will represent this nation which seemingly and appallingly is passing from a democratic republic that we call Democracy, to a land of Idiocracy, where ignorance is celebrated, science and knowledge are despised, and entertainment inspires more votes than political realities.
Yes, I voted for Obama. There is no other rational choice.
I am not a Democrat. If the Republicans ever put up a rational, capable candidate with integrity and substance, he or she just might get my vote. But this time... they have not done that. Not even close.
Some of these things I have asserted before:
No president we ever elect will be perfect or ideal.
No president will ever be best in every arena he or she must enter over the four years of the office.
Sometimes, we must look most at who we believe will do the least damage, or who has the strongest principles, or the most or least objectionable advisors. We can observe how one may be of greater or lesser influence in the world around us: we may be a large part of a continent, but we are not an island, isolated from all else passing on the planet.
The next President will not have nearly the power that we are misled to believe, to fulfill the promises of campaigning: It takes Congress and others working with or despite the President, and the sense or lack of it, of the American people, to determine how our economy will function. A President cannot pass laws alone, or decide all policies alone.
A body of antipatriots has proven its ability to sabotage the best offerings of a President, standing by its own stated declaration that their entire effort from the day of his election would be aimed at defeating him in the next.
We are all witness, aware of it or not, that a single truth out of original context, and spoken of by master manipulators, such as the people who 'handle' candidates, and candidates themselves, can become lies. Lying by misquote, by manipulation of truth, is the hallmark of campaigning, especially by those who lack substance of their own.
Campaigning for office is not the office itself. Persuading voters to vote for them is a candidate's job, but as we've seen this very week, it is not the job of the office itself. We've seen the President be President when and where we needed him to be. His choice in that matter, to drop the campaigning in order to do the job that is his for at least one more week, shows what we can count on in the future.
We have spent four years training a man of integrity, to do the job, we have some notion which way he will jump on a problem. And many of the things that are not as better as we'd wish them to be, were never in his power to make that much better. He announced from the beginning the intent to be everyone's President, not just his own Party's, and that in itself was refreshing. He did not appreciate, I think, just how cemented-in-place were the partisans he had to deal with, how much power they had, to sabotage, create obstacles, and lie, without accountability.
From a lame field of dogmatic irrationalists, America was offered... one of them. Not one in that field has the capacity or qualifications to be President. That candidate has been 'handled' this way and that, to appear qualified, to appear truly willing and able to represent the whole American public. And a lot of people--about half of the voting citizenry, it appears--are buying into it, because it is so much what they want to be true.
If that candidate wins, he truly will represent this nation which seemingly and appallingly is passing from a democratic republic that we call Democracy, to a land of Idiocracy, where ignorance is celebrated, science and knowledge are despised, and entertainment inspires more votes than political realities.
Yes, I voted for Obama. There is no other rational choice.
I am not a Democrat. If the Republicans ever put up a rational, capable candidate with integrity and substance, he or she just might get my vote. But this time... they have not done that. Not even close.
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