Campaign Thoughts

When I am asked who I'm voting for this year, I reply, "Obi-Wan Kenobi, because he's our only hope." People laugh, but it is the closest I can come to finding a candidate that I would vote for. Especially now, since it seems that people are up in arms lately over a lot of things in the political world. Specifically, in the presidential race, that Mitt Romney made a statement about his birth certificate, a statement which was meant, apparently, as an off-the-cuff remark, something as a joke, a reference to his home state. This was probably meant as a joke, since Romney has repeatedly says he is not a "birther" but it could have really gone either way. People are saying that it means that Romney is a birther (and here) , that he is attacking Obama, that it is racist in some way, and basically that it means that Romney is a crazy republican you shouldn't trust.

Here's the issue that I see. This election seems to be more about bashing and smearing the other canidate, his party and his ideas more than anything else. The whole thing, so far, has been two groups children pointing fingers at each other and trying to convince the other neighborhood children that they are better than the other without even saying how they're better. Mitt Romney waves around his ideas, things he's done in the past and makes remarks towards the president, tries to undercut him a lot, and the president does the same, and then waves around the Navy Seals like toy soldiers, which is his perogative, as commander-in-chief. My point is that all anyone has done recently is put their foot in their mouth, play the blame game and try to convince everyone that one is somehow better than the other when there don't seem to be that many differences (and here).

In this presidential election where are the debates about the domestic issues, so far there have been a few pot-shots fired across the bows of the other party's ship, but no actual debates, people have seemed to avoid it, referring instead to the aforementioned finger-pointing and smearing. I do not care, overly much, about the future president's private life, like most Americans, unless it will in some way be detrimental to national security or the overall system that runs the nation. All I, and a good portion of the population here in America, want to know are his opinions, his thoughts, and what he will do if elected, not what he thinks of sports, or how he spends his money, or any of his personal habits, no one is trying to interview a potential new roommate here. We should not be concerned about what a man in a distant white-painted house does in his spare time when he is not trying to run a country. Our duty our mission as citizens is to remain mentally strong and not get sucked into the vicious cycle of schoolyard style drama.

These are issues which are important, letting us know what we need to know, things that should not be overlooked in favor of unreleased tax returns, and smearing one's opponent, which seems to be the standard now in the political realm. What is the point? It's a presidential campaign, shouldn't we be a little more mature than a high school-esque election?  Are we going to stand by and let politicians know that they can pander to us by being immature or are we going to stand up, as a country, and say "We want a real person for president, not someone who is going to point fingers and whine, but a real person who has backbone, who will support our endeavors and fight for us?" Until that happens, I'm still going to write in Obi-Wan Kenobi until one of the candidates actually gives us some hope.