We're off!
Item:
By this stage in the game, we've usually endorsed a candidate for the Presidency. This time around, it's not so simple for us. We have serious concerns with both candidates and their plans going forward. For the first time, we may actually be acting on the tired cliche of picking the lesser of two evils. It's a tired refrain in US politics but one that sadly, we find our self facing.
Let's focus on the positives we see first.
The President has not, in our opinion, done a bad job. All things being equal, while not entirely on board with what he is doing, we'd feel OK giving him another four years and seeing where we stand then. The economy is a slow-moving beast and the situation inherited is not going to be corrected overnight. We see signs of recovery and are personally better off than we were four years ago.
As for the other candidate, in an allegedly toxic economy, Mitt Romney has made millions of dollars. Wouldn't it make sense to have someone in office with that track record, when battling a lingering recession? Who cares how he did it? If it was legal, we don't. Similarly, we do not care about what he paid in taxes. It's frankly none of our business. We are not naive enough to think that a rich man failed to take advantage of every single tax loophole available to him. If we had his resources, we would do exactly the same thing. He has been a successful businessman and Governor. In order to excel in business in the long-term, one must be a coalition builder. One must be able to get large groups of people with differing agendas to buy in to his vision and follow him. Again, this sounds like something we'd like to see in a president.
Romney has his flaws however.
His stated goal, on Day One, is to repeal Obamacare. To this, we could not possibly be more adamantly opposed.
Obamacare is flawed. We do not think it is the panacea the donkeys would like to think it is. However, since the beginning of the health care debate, our desire has been to see a new system put into place, for us to live with it for five years or so, then tweak (or completely disassemble) as needed. Revamping a five-year old system is going to be infinitely more doable than what we just went through getting through the entrenched special interests in order to get to Obamacare. And nothing that happens in the next five years is going to bankrupt the country.
The first president to propose health care reform was...wait for it...Harry S. Truman. That was over 60 years ago! And it took the single greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression to get people so fed up that they actually did something -- sent a clear and unmistakable signal to Washington that it was time to do it. To say that he wants to just repeal it on Day One makes it very hard for us to vote for Mitt Romney. Tweak it? Sure. Heavily modify it? Not so sure but, OK, we're on board still. Repeal it? We can't go there.
So how about Obama?
Well, the first problem we have with him is that he had a super majority in congress and pissed it away. Health care got done but what else? The entire Democratic party had an opportunity to shine -- to reach across the aisle, build coalitions and take this country to heights never before seen.
But they didn't. They pranced and preened and shut the elephants out of the conversation and squandered the opportunity -- our opportunity.
This lack of leadership on the part of the President was troubling but nowhere near as troubling as his approach to the war he already won, when he issued an Executive Order that far superseded the traditional scope of such edicts.
An Executive Order is supposed to clarify existing law, not make new law. His Order regarding contraception absolutely exceeded accepted parameters. Forcing religious institutions to provide insurance coverage that pays for birth control -- something to which they are morally opposed -- is not only a clear violation of the separation of church and state, it is also sexist. There is no provision providing free condoms for men. Why? Because men are not the votes he is aiming for here. The pro-abortion -- and make no mistake, they are not pro-choice, they are absolutely pro-abortion -- cabal that has hijacked the Democratic party is absolutely determined to make abortion the central issue in this election.
As the leader of his party, Barack Obama has done nothing to deter these people. To the contrary, he has sided with them and encouraged them every step of the way. He has fueled the fire of an alleged War on Women much in the same way as he has stoked the flames of the Class War. This is not how one leads. This is how one creates an environment of blame, where, if and when things go bad, he has willing minions to take the fall -- and his blame.
So we're torn. We do not think the unregulated wild west economy the Republicans seem to want is the answer. We do not believe in trickle down. Never have, never will. The President was elected on more than issues though. He was elected to lead. He was elected to take our hopes and change them into reality. In many ways, he has failed to do so.
While we're not fervently on board either of these guys' trains, in the end, we need to either vote for one of them or cast a protest vote for Gary Bates. (hmmm, that's a good idea for another blog post)
We don't see this as a particularly dire election. If Obama is reelected, we don't think the country is going to go bankrupt or we'll be overrun with Mexicans and jihadists. If Romney prevails, we don't see bread lines and women in chains. The next four years are going to be about continued economic recovery and a fight for the allegiance of the middle.
That being the case, we're not particularly passionate about either candidate. We are, however passionate about human life. We believe in the sanctity of human life, from conception until natural death, with very limited exceptions. We base that belief not only on our religious faith but also on the science. We've never seen a human zygote become anything other than a human being. We've not seen one become a giraffe. Or a Buick. Until we do, we will consider the only difference between a seven second-old zygote and a seven decade-old man to be that they are on a different place on the exact same life cycle. If it is wrong to kill the 70 year-old man, how is it OK to kill the zygote? And if we cannot kill the 70 year-old man based on how he was conceived, how can we do so to the zygote?
In an election where we're not fully sold on either candidate's plan, we're going to choose life.
We endorse Mitt Romney for the office of President of the United States.
Whomever wins, may God, in His infinite love and wisdom, guide him.
And with that, we bid you adieu.
Until next time,
Keep the Faith
