Right now, if I had to vote for someone for President, and wasn't allowed to abstain, my vote would go as follows:
1. Mitt Romney
2. Barack Obama
2. Rick Santorum
3. Newt Gingrich
I was listening to Mitt Romney's celebration speech (for winning the Florida primary) this evening on the way home from work, and I had to shake my head several times. Most of it was at the attacking nature of speech: "My opponents are doing this stupid thing! The president wants to destroy America!" Other times it was at the black and white nature of the positions he presented. "The president wants to disband our entire military! I'm going to make it into the greatest military juggernaut in history!" (Yes, I'm exaggerating.)
Apparently Florida has been just about the most negative political race in history. As a huge believer in decency, respect, and diplomacy, my estimation of Mitt Romney (and the other candidates) has been lowered because of the attack ads they've ran.
At the same time, I know why the candidates run attack ads: they get attention, they get press, and they get results. People are swayed by them. The unfortunate side effect is that candidates are willing to run incorrect (read: lying) attack ads, because by the time they're exposed, the damage has been done and of course the expose gets much less attention than the ad itself.
I'm guessing most people in country would agree that the state of politics in our country is pretty bad. It's hard going to the polls when you're only selecting the least distastful of two choices.
5 comments:
Mitt Romney is a horrible greedy man, your first choice should be Ron Paul. Seriously, he's the only candidate that's even somewhat bearable. I'm genuinely concerned you haven't reached this logical conclusion.
I wish for you to justify this omission.
Mostly because I didn't think he'd be on the ballot when the CA primaries occur in June.
If he is, I'll certainly consider his positions more deeply than I have to date.
AC- Ron Paul will never be elected as President because he believes in a strict interpretation of the Constitution and he doesn't pander. Most Americans would rather be pandered to than have their rights protected. Other than his foreign policy which I think is frighteningly backwards in this day and age I love what he stands for but the people of America aren't ready for him.
And thus we are presented with a choice:
1) do we vote for the man we want (Ron Paul!) to be President, even though we know he can't win?
2) do we vote for someone we don't want, but we think our vote will actually count?
With my current very limited amount of research on the candidates, influenced primarily by the news media (CNN and NPR being my primary sources), I would choose Mitt Romney over Ron Paul.
Neither of them are perfect, or possibly even great, but Mitt Romney is less objectionable than Ron Paul to me at the moment.
Post a Comment