Left: Barack Obama
Right: John McCain
Photo Source: Public Domain

Political campaigns, they are dirty, they are filled with lies and the candidates usually make promises that they can't keep. Maybe we should use some other method of campaigning, but how could we do it. How about this, we hook both candidates up to lie detectors while the debate is going on. I am sure that we would get some interesting results. I just saw an article on the Internet talking about Joe the plumber. It stated that some of the story was skewed. It said that Joe's first name is Sam and he has no plumber's license but works as an assistant to a plumber. Oh well, if true that was almost a white lie compared to some of the real juicy stuff. Please keep in mind that I am writing this article on October 17, 2008 and it may not reach the Internet until near the election and things may have changed by then.

There are some things about both campaigns that bother me, as I am sure that they bother you. One is the fact that Sara Palin and her husband both belonged to an organization that advocated secession from the United States and indeed she was under investigation for firings she made when she was picked to run for vice president. Obama went to the church of a radical pastor for years who denounced this country and only seemed to stop going there when things got too hot for him. McCain thinks that rewarding the rich will somehow help the poor and wants us to have our health benefits taxed and then give us a pittance to purchase a plan with. Obama while not responsible for statements made by other senators such as Senator Lewis, didn't seem to rebuke him enough for THAT statement. Republicans outside of the campaign had actually made threats against Obama's life at Palin rallies and the FBI is investigating.

Left: Joe Biden
Right: Sarah Palin
Photo Source: Biden Photo - Public Domain
Photo Source: Palin Photo - GNU Free Documentation License

I think that the way we vote for president should be changed. First I would like to say that our whole system of voting for president should be made more democratic. We should all just have to register as a voter and not with a party affiliation. The news media wouldn't like this very much, since they use the voter information for their projections and they wouldn't be able to say Democrats or Republicans are voting in a particular way. Secondly the vote for president should be a popular one and not through the Electoral College. Under current law a group of people represent us that are not bound by law to vote the way we want them to. In all fairness they usually do vote that way however. The vote for president should be by popular vote, but this would have meant that George Bush would have lost the first election, because although he won the electoral votes, many believe that he lost the popular vote.

Where does this leave the voter? Well the way I see it and this is only my personal opinion and I think that everyone is entitled to their opinion and to prove this, Click Here to state yours, I look at both candidates and I can not help but feel that a vote for McCain, while he is not George Bush as he has been painted, is a vote for many failed policies and a vote to continue the endless war in Iraq. I do not understand why we haven't used oil revenues from that country to pay for the war and why we keep putting our men in a position where they can get killed or maimed. We should have been able to set up some sort of Iraqi home guard by now so that this country could defend itself. We have to remember that the numbers of killed Americans while high doesn't reflect the number of maimed Americans, which is far higher. I feel that this war must end, while McCain gives us that old tired story that we are winning. The policy of helping the rich by giving them more, has never worked. It is just a ploy to help out their buddies. Many of the companies being given money send it overseas, because they are international companies so where is the benefit of doing this for them? I think that it is obvious to all that there are 44 million people without hospitalization in this country and those that have it are seeing premiums and co-payments soar and yet McCain wanted to give us a taxable $5,000 to get our own insurance. If you are over 40 years old and have anything wrong with you, good luck in getting insurance. You will be about $7,000 dollars short per year. All this leads me to believe that McCain just doesn't understand the plight of the middle and poor classes or just doesn't care.

Relations with other countries are at an all time low. President Bush has seen to that. In all fairness, McCain had a very tough road to travel thanks to President Bush. The economy has become the number one topic in this election. Unemployment is soaring, wages are going nowhere and President Bush has been completely ineffective. On top of this, McCain wants to continue some of his policies, such as trickle down economics. Hasn't he noticed that this hasn't worked in the last eight years, where has he been? Obama's plan seems to be a lot sounder. Help the middle class and the poor. This sounds almost like the New Deal, where then President Roosevelt started huge work projects and got everyone back to work. This policy worked. Obama seems to understand the plight of the middle and poor classes, at least it seems that way. We can never be 100% sure that what is being said will be done, but at least Obama is giving us hope. We need a new face that can restore relations with countries all over the world, but won't let us be taken advantage of. When one looks at the policies of the last eight years it seems that everything that was done was to provide huge profits to someone. The war in Iraq was a God Send to service companies and contractors. The terror of 9/11 allowed the government to expand in totally useless ways and some of the treaties we made were only of benefit to others and hurt us. Even now, President Bush is removing North Korea from the list of terrorist nations without any reason to do so. He is trying to save the record of his administration. Someone has to tell him it is TOO LATE and TOO LITTLE!

While I do not want to say that McCain is Bush, he certainly is no rebel unless he wants to call himself a rebel that votes yes on bills put forward by the president. Sure Obama will probably not be able to deliver everything that he promises, but even if he delivers some of it, the average person will be much better off. There are certain things we need desperately. One is hospitalization for everyone. This is not socialism, but a human right. If people get preventive medicine, things will get cheaper for all. Secondly we need to route out fraud in all programs and while this was not addressed directly by Obama, he did say that he would go through the budget with a scalpel. He also promised no tax increases for those making $250,000 or less. The truth of the matter is that companies and the rich pay far less taxes than was indicated. This is due to the fact that there are so many tax shelters out there. If Obama raises taxes on richer individuals and Warren Buffet said he felt that the rich were getting off too easy, it will only be what they should have paid anyway or maybe even less when you consider all the loopholes that are being used by them.

Lastly I don't want a vice president to inherit the presidency of the United States that belonged to a organization that advocated breaking away from the US. I can live with Biden becoming president, not Palin. There you have my opinion on the election. Many will agree and many won't, but I believe that we all love our country and want to see it get back on its feet and resume its rightful place in the world. I feel that it would be impossible to be worse off than we are now.