First Tuesday in November

Oh election time is upon us.  Well it is still several months but the candidates have entirely too much advertising money to spend so instead of hiring the agency that does the Allstate Mayhem commercials, to create something worth watching, they are just going to buy up every moment of airspace that they can and call each other names.

I am not politically savvy.  I don’t understand pork spending unless I am at Costco and then it is buying the four pack of bacon.  I do not understand the concept of pacs or superpacs.  I imagine a superpac is a lot of regular pacs that have joined together much in the same way that the Power Rangers set aside their color differences to become an undefeatable Super Ranger.   I don’t know what bipartisanship means but it sounds like a word that would get you a lot of points on words with friends.  Here’s what I do know, the political world today is not what George, Ben and the like had in mind.

According to my Facebook page I am a moderate republican.  Meaning, stay out of my wedding reception,  bedroom and prescription files but pat me down at the airport, let me arm my home and kick ass on the battlefield.  Test welfare recipients for drugs.  It only seems fair since soldiers are frequently peeing in a cup.

I have been alive for eight presidents.  I do not remember Nixon or Ford.  Most of what I remember of Carter is his daughter’s cat, his brother’s beer and his complete debacle of the Iran hostage situation.  Ronald Reagan, who is my obvious favorite, was the president of my formative years.  He served from 1980 to 1988.  I have read a couple of books on the man and have come away with these thoughts.  He loved his wife like crazy.  He was not a fantastic dad.  He believed that everyone in a nation like ours had the opportunity to be successful.  He loved America.  He had balls.  The man broke in a new pair of jeans by swimming in them and then let them dry on his body so they would have the right fit.  That is some hardcore cowboy shit right there. 

He was a great speaker.  He moved me, even as a kid I could tell that he really believed in the United States.  Reagan loved our nation and was proud of who were and what we were doing. 

There were many scandals during his administrations.  I remember bits of Iran Contra but didn’t know what that meant.  All I knew was we were kicking ass and taking names.  In true superhero fashion, Reagan punched a hole in the Berlin wall and brought communism to its knees.  (I don’t know how true that statement is, but it would make a great tagline for a movie!). 

George HW Bush was the president during Desert Shield and Storm.  He was Danny’s commander and chief.  Again I saw a leader that loved the United States.  I also saw a leader that surrounded himself with very smart military leaders.  You thought I was going to include Qualye in that statement, didn’t you!  I am not that crazy. 

I voted for Bush in the ’92 election, but was not surprised when Clinton won.  Outside of his office sexcapades, or because of them, he was a good president.  We were financially secure and I didn’t fear for my children’s future like I do now.  I wish he would had have been more aggressive with terrorist threats, but it is hard to be ballsy when…insert Monica joke here.

Dubya.   Again, my husband’s commander in chief.  Again, a man that made his love for our nation obvious.  Again, financially, we were doing alright.  But things did get dicey in the end.  I liked that Dubya could not string three words together to make a coherent sentence.  I liked that he threw the dictionary away and made up his own words.  I did not like that he had wars on two fronts.  But I always felt like he believed in what he was doing and was doing what he could to keep the US strong.

There are many things I like about Obama.  He is very intelligent.  The big words that he uses are real words, not odd mash ups.  He is a good dad.  I think Bush and Clinton were as well.  He does a great Al Green.  But do I think he loves America, no I don’t.  Not in the way that he needs to to make her great again.  I don’t think Romney does either, though.  I think Obama can be a great leader but too many of the people that voted for him went back to their couches and are just waiting for their next check.  Oh wait, not check, electronic deposit onto their EBT card.  I realize that that sounds incredibly racist of me and I suppose it is.  But only if it is fair to say that many people voted of Obama strictly based on the color of his skin.  They did not know what his platform was or even what his expectations were of his voters.  I believe that Obama thought the fire he had started in his campaign would keep burning.  People would try to be proactive and make something of themselves.  Can he make things better in the next four years?  I don’t know.  We are a divided nation.  Not just in half, but each half is in half.  There are tea partiers and tea baggers and birthers and birth controllers and people with their hand out and most with just a finger up.  No one with a thumbs up.

And then there is Mitt.  I liked him four years ago.  He seemed to have the answers to the questions I might ask.  But now days, I don’t know.  I don’t trust a man that has just the right amount of gray at the temples.  Seems to me he is being application specific with his Nice and Easy.  And then there is the whole Irish setter on the roof of the car thing.  I realize that that was many years ago, but I get the feeling that it was not a Clark Griswald type of mistake but a more calculated, asshole kind of move.  It does bother me that none of his boys have served our nation in a way that took them out of their comfort zones and put them in a war zone.  Because they would have never needed to go into the military for the money or education, they would have entered to serve.  That they would have had a call for love of country.  I don’t get the feeling that they love their country.  Not in the way that we need it to be loved.  I also realize that there are millions of families that do not have a member in the military and they do truly love this nation.  It’s just that the Romney boys seem to think that renting a RV and traveling all counties of Iowa somehow constitutes service and love.   

Show me how you will create jobs.  Show me that you can create a nation that will grow and support my children.  Show me that there are far more important things then gay marriage.  Like  being number one in education.  Like making sure that my children will not be swallowed up in our debt.  That someone in Washington knows how to balance a budget. 

I am glad November is a few months off because I don’t know who gets my vote. I will have to weigh Mitt’s running mate against Obama’s well educated, F bomb dropping sidekick.   Not that I really believe that one vote makes a difference, huh Gore?  But if I don’t vote than I can’t bitch and I will not give up bitching.