Got Lipstick?

What a sad state of our times when we reduce the presidential elections from platforms from which to preach solutions to our country's biggest problems, to the point of arguing about lipstick on a pig. I kind of doubt that my life will change much either way whether that pig, or pit bull, has lipstick or not.

I think that there are many more, more important issues than lipstick on a pig. Maybe the legalities of fighting a war in Iraq, illegal wiretapping, with holding and destroying evidence before they can be subpoenaed, picking people off the street in foreign countries without that country's knowledge or permission, keeping prisoners in foreign prisons, and we still don't know about the illegal firings of prosecutors or the big one, torture of prisoners in the war against terrorism. These are past failures of the present administration that no one wants to tackle.

Instead of lipstick on a pit bull or lipstick on a pig, why don't the candidates tell us about how they are going to tackle the problems we face in our government and the problems that are affecting the American people? I could give a rat's as* about lipstick on any kind of animal, doesn't strike my fancy, but apparently it's high on the Democrat and Republican list of important things that the American people need to know. How about letting me know how I'm going to afford to heat my house, or put gas in my car, how are they going to improve our infrastructure, how will we move into the future as a provider of high paying technology jobs in our own country instead of providing low paying jobs for people in third world countries? Apparently none of these things are very high on either candidates list as being important to the American people.

I would think that the first candidate that comes up with a workable budget plan for our country, the first candidate that speaks truth and shows out unfounded lies, the first candidate that promises to run the government openly in front of everyone for all to criticize and debate, that candidate should be our clear choice for president, not the candidate who tells the biggest or the most lies.

A New Process for Selecting Our Representatives

What America needs is a new process for picking it's representatives. The way we chose our leaders has basically grown more and more flawed as the years gone by, morphing elections and thus changing politics into something totally different than our founders had ever in visioned. When this country was founded, there were only 13 colonies. It was a pretty easy task for everyone to know if one person held better leadership qualities than another person by their past actions. How we chose our leaders was much different than it is today. Through time, as our population spread out across the North American Continent, it became necessary for politicians to boast more and advertise their accomplishments to win over votes from people that they have never met or who have never heard of them before. Through the years the process of selecting our leaders has become broken. I'm not saying I have a completely worked out grand new plan to fix all our problems, but today I'm going to write about some of the reasons why I think our elections fail to bring before us good candidates for presidential selection who care as much for the interests of the common person on the street as they do for the interests of big business.

I've always heard that we are never going to get a person in office that is any more ethical or morally responsible then the people that put them in office. I somewhat agree with that statement. If the voters are not very ethical or moral, they won't hold the politicians they have elected accountable to being ethical or moral either. I do think that the way we select our politicians makes a big difference in the kind of leaders we have though.

One of the biggest failings in our process of selecting a government representative is the amount of money needed for anyone to run for office. This fails our government from the start in so many ways. One of the biggest ways this has a negative effect on our politicians is that they need to spend a pretty good share of time raising money for their re-elections, because they need lots of money to get re-elected. Usually, without some extenuating circumstances, or other form of fame and publicity, the person that spends the most money wins the election. It takes large amounts of money to travel around the district, state, or our country promoting one's self putting out television, internet, and radio ads. Ads must introduce the candidate, list where they stand on issues, tell of unscrupulous acts by the opposition, and defend one's self from smears made by the opposition. As our population grew and spread across the continent the cost of campaigning has grew.

Politicians are only human and it is human nature to do nice things for people who do nice things for us. Lets face it, people give large amounts of money or favors to candidates for basically one reason, and that is with the hope that their donations will help elect the candidate of their choice, and once in office that candidate will remember the donor's issues that they wanted help with. Other than that, whether it's a large amount of money from a large corporations or small amounts of money from individual donors, there is no other reason for anyone to give money to a candidate. It's a validation for the candidate. It's a way of saying you think like I do on the issues that matter to me, so here's some money to help you get elected so you can support those issues. Politicians are not supposed to think of who gave them how much money or let it influence their decisions when they vote on issues that may affect the donor, there are laws against it. But when money is so important to getting re-elected, who in their right mind would vote for something that would adversely affect someone who gives big money towards getting them elected?

Somehow we have to take the costs of campaigning out of the equation, that is about the only way to take the advantage away from big business and special interest groups. The government actually owns control of TV and Radio frequencies, there should be a certain amount of airtime given to the process of electing our representatives that they don't have to pay for. Candidates should have to present themselves within a structured format so that people can see where each candidate stands compared to their rivals. There should be no public advertisements by special interests groups smearing rival candidates. In fact anything that is said by a candidate or endorsed by a candidate should be factual. If it is found that any candidate lied about past voting records, past positions on issues, smears against rival candidates, they should be prosecuted for lieing or slander. It should not be up to the voting public to have to check up on every statement made by politicians and try to figure out whether it is a lie or not. We should demand that when politicians speak to us that they are telling the truth, they work for us after all.

The Presidential Candidates

While I have not been affiliated with any particular political party, the last few years I have come to realize that I tend to agree with the values of the Democratic party more than the Republican party. There are things I don't like about the Democrats like most of their views on gun control, but it seems, especially the last eight years, that the Republicans are fat cats for fat cats at the expense of people who aren't so fortunate. Republicans don't seem very compassionate of the needs or desires of the common people, they are more pro big business insisting on passing laws that benefit big businesses with the insinuation that the wealth will trickle down to the masses, even though they pretty much know it doesn't. I think that it has been shown again and again that this line of thinking is flawed. Those benefits given big businesses don't give any relief to the masses and just serve to fatten the profit margins of those companies as they lay off more and more people and pay the ones they keep less and even to the point of moving their operations outside the US to take advantage of low wages, poor working conditions and lower environmental regulations. I have been totally put off by the secrecy and illegal activities of our government during the coarse of the Bush Administration that has put America in such a bad light to the rest of the world. With that said, here are my thoughts on the major three presidential candidates as I see them.

John McCain
In his words and actions seems to be pretty much hell bent on continuing the Bush legacy. Wanting to stay in Iraq for the long run no matter what the cost. Loyal to the Republican party's agendas, in other words, except for some minor differences, pretty much more of the same failed policies as we had the last eight years. If Bush is your hero, John is your man. This is a very sober statement given by McCain, "Presidents have to make judgments no matter how popular or unpopular they may be." This mirrors Dick Cheney's statements on why we need to stay in Iraq even though the vast majority of the people would like us out of there. Another comment that he made in regards to the idea of a "League of Democracies", a plan of his to create an organization like the United Nations except for no communists or dictators to have to contend with, McCain says, "It could act where the UN fails to act." Bush never had much regard for the UN either. Age has to be a factor, look at Bush or any other president that has lasted through a couple of terms of president, now imagine starting off with someone that is that old to start with. Just what America needs after eight years of a president that was in denial, a president that is facing senility.

Hillery Clinton
First woman to run for President a historical event. When it comes right down to it, would you want to have Bill Clinton back in the White House as the nation's First Gentleman? Cigars anyone? "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." With this in mind how strong do you think this candidate would be in the fall elections against McCain? Hillery can't resolve issues with her marriage seemingly content to put up with her husband running around as he probably is still beneficial to her goals or aspirations. Hillery has strong support of women, but a couple things has come out again and again. Hillery seems willing to say just about anything to get the nomination, from dodging sniper bullets to claiming that she can win just by sticking around...remember Kennedy's assassination? Finally the last gripes I have about Hillery are I think her campaign has been a lot more negative compared to Obama's, I think her comment about obliterating Iran was pretty scary, I'm really getting tired of hearing her say that she has the popular vote when the only way that is possible is if you count Michigan's results, a ballot that Obama's name wasn't even on the ticket. Now that I have brought up the matter of Michigan, that is another thing that really disturbs me about Hillery. Everyone involved agreed with the decision of not counting Florida and Michigan because they broke the parties rules, but now as that is the only way Hillery has a chance at the nomination, she counts them as she tells everyone she has the populist vote and she is fighting against the party now in demanding that the rules be changed, this kind of reminds me of the kind of thing Bush does and shows me that a vote for Hillery would be a vote for government as usual without regard for the rules.

Barack Obama
Another historic first, first black man to run for government. What an election, first woman and first black man running for president. This election has set the theme for issues about race and gender, something never really having been an issue in this way in the past. Truthfully I haven't looked back on voting records of either of the three candidates, so except for what I have heard in the news, I am pretty much taking the candidates at their word for what they stand for. Listening to the candidates though I like Obama's style. I believe he is fighting a lot less negative campaign and even defending some of what Hillery has said and done for the good of the party. He has had some troubles with things his paster has said, but I don't ever remember Obama appointing the paster his spokes person. The point is I think Obama has been the most refreshing of the candidates, he is believable it doesn't seem like he is hiding things as in that he spoke of his experiments with drugs in his past, he talks of diplomacy and actually talking to opposition leaders in the world that don't agree with our ideals to try to improve conditions and relations instead of rushing in with an army and the threat of force, I think this is why he has even received good comments from leaders in Cuba and Iran. I believe he will restore America's reputation among other countries in the world that we as a nation really need to do, it's a small world and it gets smaller all the time with new technologies. Obama when he responds to accusations he is thoughtful and reacts in a way that seems to show he does not get carried away with emotions in his comments.

So I guess by now you can probably tell who I'm rooting for, but what's your take?