Living in Iowa in an election year

It is almost election year!  Hurray!  Politics are awesome.  Seriously, I can think of no better way to spend millions of dollars than on oversized fliers that I get to recycle, on TV ads that I fast forward through and on phone calls that I send to voice mail.  And it is not because I don't care about what happens in this country, because I do.  It is because no one is going to tell me the God's Honest Truth ever in an election year.
I had the conversation once with an Obama supporter prior to the last election.  He was working very hard trying to sway me to see his point of view.  But I am more conservative than Obama and seeing that point of view wasn't happening very easily.  Once Obama became president though, I hoped that he wouldn't fail.   I also hoped that all those people running around in HOPE shirts listening to the man say "Yes we can!" were going to be part of the "we".  Unfortunately, I think there were a great number of people that voted for Obama based solely on the color of his skin and his party affiliation and when the election was over, they had no intention of being part of the solution.  I am sorry for that.  I don't blame Obama and his administration for all that is wrong with our nation today.  I think it took a lot of screw ups, in politics, business and elsewhere, to create the cluster that we have now.  I don't think one person, regardless of political party, can fix all that is broken.  It really is going to take us all.  Or at the least, most of us!
So as 2012 begins, I dread the endless commercials and mailings and billboards.  I think we will reach November no more the wiser on what the issues really are and where the candidates stand on them.  I think people will get caught up in gay marriage because it can be a dramatic topic, but will forget that families are falling apart, not because the parents are of the same sex, but because the parents are out of work, or have lost their home or cannot get adequate medical coverage.  There are the real issues.  Not if Adam loves Steve.  I don't care who Adam loves, he can love the Eiffel Tower for all I care, I just want Adam to be able to make a decent wage, buy American made products at a fair price, get a good education for his children and know that the military that is protecting him is well trained and well funded. 
I do not know who I would vote for if the elections were held today.  According to the Yahoo quiz, Mitt Romney is my guy.  I like Mitt.  I like how he ran the Olympics in Utah.  I don't care that he is a Morman.  If he is like the other members of LSD that I have known over the years, then he knows how to work hard.   But I get the impression that he may think one thing personally and another politically and won't take the true stand.  I am not very political and in no way do I pretend to understand any of it.  I just know that there has to be someone that is capable of leading us back to prosperity.  I want o be part of that positive move forward.  I want to leave the United States a better place for my children.  I think we owe them that.