One year away

One year from today marks Election Day, 2012.  Many people are looking forward to that day, for different reasons.  Some are just against President Obama and are anxious to cast their vote against him.  Others have a real excitement for one of the GOP candidates and are anxious to cast a vote for them.  Others, well, they are just anxious to cast a vote for another Obama term.  I believe, though, regardless of whether I agree with President Obama's policies, we need someone who is actually qualified to run this country in the White House in 2013.

President Obama had been a member of the United States Senate for less than one year before he took office as President of the United States.  Yes, he had been involved in his state legislature for a few years before that, but he virtually had no executive experience before being elected President.  In 2008, people were anxious to make history with that vote, and they did.  It just didn't happen in the ways they were expecting.  President Obama was the first President in a long time to actually keep his campaign promise:  To fundamentally transform America.  He has done so largely through the legalization of abortion.  This was not legal when this country was founded; rather, it was a foreign concept that people didn't even think about.  In 2008 our economic crisis was, really, just beginning.  We did not need a fundamental transformation.  We needed a strong leader with a proven record of getting things done.  We needed someone who knew how to lead and take a stand for what they believed was right.  Instead, we were given someone with almost no experience who, in attempting to solve our nation's problems, has only made them worse.  Some of these new issues were directly his fault, and some were not.  Either way, he will ultimately be blamed for all of them because he was the President.

Many people believe that President Obama will be defeated in a landslide in 2012.  I do not believe this.  I think that if the GOP crowd does not get behind one candidate soon, President Obama will have a greater chance to win.  We do need to be picky about our nominee, not only because they will be the one we believe in to get us out of this hole, but we need someone who can definitely come out strong against President Obama.  We need someone with a proven record who can put his (or hers) up next to President Obama's and clearly show the American people the difference between a proven leader and an inexperienced leader.  Yes, having someone who is totally outside the Washington elite would be nice; but if we choose someone with absolutely no executive experience, I believe we might as well be handing the victory to President Obama.  While we don't want another typical politician in power, we do need someone who knows what they are doing, here at home and around the world.  Even if we defeat President Obama in 2012, if we elect someone with less experience than he had, we won't be doing ourselves a huge favor.  Even someone with little experience will not be able to fully bring America back from the edge it is on. 

2012 is critical.  Literally, every vote will count.  By someone saying, "I don't like the nominee, so I won't vote", they are giving their vote to President Obama.  We need to come together as a nation and take a stand for the next generation.  If we do not, we will become a socialist nation just like every other one in the world.  By sitting on the sidelines, we allow distant politicians in Washington to determine our futures for us.  By standing up and getting into the middle of the fight, we ensure that nothing can happen without "We the People"'s approval.  Those in Washington need a wake-up call to once again be reminded why we elected them.  November 6th, 2012, will be our next, and possibly last, chance to do so.

Interesting Reads

Here are a couple of articles I found very interesting.

First one is about Mitt Romney, and his increasing elusiveness the longer he runs for president (pushing five years now).  http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/07/8208708-the-relatively-unknown-mitt-romney.

The second one is about the importance of endorsements when choosing the GOP nominee.  Records show that endorsements had a bigger impact than money or name recognition.  http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/romney-leads-endorsement-race/.

The media and the 2012 election

The 2012 Presidential election is going to be a huge turning point for our country.  We are in an economic recession.  Nearly 10% of the population is out of work.  Many, many new programs have been initiated and old ones discarded in hopes of changing things.  Nothing so far has worked; if anything, it has been made worse.

The thing that will determine our new direction or lack of one after that election is going to be the person who is elected– whether that person is our current president or the GOP candidate.  All of the current GOP candidates are claiming to have their own plans to restore and rebuild America.  They say that they know exactly what we need to do in order to return to our full potential.  In the end, only one of them can win the Republican Party’s nomination. That person will square off with President Obama in the general election.
I’m sure you already knew all that.  Here is something you might not know: There are people out there right now who want to brainwash your thinking concerning this election.  Brainwash you into voting for who they think should be our president in 2012.  These people are the media.  Not all of the media wants to do this; but a good number of them do.  Many news stations today are very biased to one political party over the other.  Some of them openly admit it, but more of them do not.  They present their opinions to you as fact.  Some examples of this biased attitude are CNN and MSNBC.  Both of these stations are known as liberal stations.  They try to say their positive opinions toward the Democratic candidate for president, which in this case will be President Obama, are the only true facts and therefore you should believe them.  FOX News is a more Conservative-leaning station.  In some cases I notice both of them trying to define the line between opinion and fact.  The daytime shows are, for the most part, straight facts with an opinion only thrown in here and there.  The nighttime shows are more opinion-based.

The biased attitude is not always a bad thing.  People are entitled to their own opinions, even news anchors.  The unacceptable thing is that they try to tell you that their opinions are the only things that are true.  People should be able to go to the media for accurate news that they can use to form their own opinions.  They should not be so influenced by biased opinions passed off as fact that they have no choice but to agree with it.  This goes right along with my previous post on freedom of the press.

News shows are not the only way that the media can try to shape peoples’ opinions.  In fact, they do not even have to be actual “media” to influence people.  Normal people such as bloggers or online journalists can have just as much impact, especially if they operate a frequently visited website.  There are many blogs out there that are giving positive coverage to some candidates and are giving too much negative coverage to others.  People are allowed to campaign for their favorite candidate, but if they want to call themselves a real “news” website and not mostly an opinion website, they need to remain unbiased in their writings.  It is simply not right to try to turn peoples’ minds against one candidate just because the candidate they support is threatened by that person.  While we should try to support who we feel is most qualified for the job of President, we should also be careful not to give lies as truth about these people just because they may take some of your candidate’s support.

The person we elect as President in 2012 should be the person who is best qualified for the job.  It should not be the person who can give the best speeches, or has the best fundraising abilities.  It may not even be the most well-liked person in the race.  It needs to be the person with the best track-record who will know how to lead America back to its full potential.  The media needs to give the American people the chance to figure their opinion on that out for themselves.  The American people will also need to have the common sense to be able to discern what is truth and what is a lie.