Voting For or Against

It was four years ago I stood in line at a local convenience store waiting to pay for my gas and listening to folks talk about the upcoming election, not unlike today. I forget the exact question and my answer, but it was followed up by some coward in the back of the room piping up “You just don’t want a Black President!”

If he weren’t a coward I don’t think he would have wanted to stay anonymous. In the silence that followed I replied“I don’t have a problem with a Black President. I don’t have a problem with a Female President. I don’t want THIS Black or FemalePresident. Get Condoleezza Rice to run and I’ll vote for both.”

Of course that didn’t happen, and the folks in the crowd considered that answer to be as wrong as the earlier one. Truth is I don’t talk politics that much, other than gun rights. I trust no one is foggy where I stand on the second amendment. But the words of Edmund Burke burn in my ears – “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” With that said this is my first, and probably only, political blog.

This will be the eleventh time I have voted in a presidential election. In review I have faced a sad truth. I can count on one hand the times I voted for a candidate.

I’m not saying the times the guy I voted for won the election, but rather the times I have looked at the field of candidates and said “This is someone I can support.” Most of the time I have voted for a place holder, someone to put into office rather than the guy that scared the living hell out of me. As often as not I cast the vote with “God forgive me” on my lips. This may be one of those times.

I know many folks who make symbolic votes, writing in Mickey Mouse or voting for a candidate who can’t possibly win. I would beg folks not to take that route.

President Obama has done many things I am opposed to, but the handling of the health care plan makes my skin crawl. Our law makers were urged to vote for a two thousand page plan they had not read. The reasoning was that it was too important to delay. Just pass it! Once it’s law we can fix what we don’t like! The best part enough or our elected offices – “the people looking out for us in Washington”(?) bought into it.

And the fixing, that’s still going on and being fought every step of the way.

If all contracts were handled that way it would be a very interesting world.

I don’t want to think about what this man would be capable of as a lame duck.