Funny but Not Funny

Republican candidates in the primaries are providing great drama and comedy these days. I wish they were actually giving us truth and problem solving. I normally don’t care about Republican presidential candidates but this year is a little different.

I nearly always vote Democrat but that is not an automatic choice. I truly believed in Obama last time and I have not given up on him, but I am at least looking at options. Until recently there was exactly one acceptable Republican candidate but now I don’t know. First, my view on the UNacceptables. Bachman – geez, I am so glad she dropped out. This is not her time and maybe it never will be. Gingrich – Godfather of Gridlock. Come on, doesn’t anybody remember the shit that pompous hypocrite caused when he was Speaker of the House? A dangerous man to be Chief. It bothers me that there is even a chance. Perry – stay in Texas, dude, nobody outside of that state believes a word you say. Santorum – believable, but I don’t especially believe I like his views. Paul – he is more ‘maverick’ than Palin was and is very authentic. But I just don’t know.

That leaves the obvious – Romney. Some Republicans are finally realizing that he is the ONLY person in the whole current Republican field that can beat Obama and some people are voting for him in primaries. He is not necessarily better, just electable. He seems sincere to me and he might also be one of the few who might pay attention to somebody other than the bosses of his party. But I do have a problem with him. The recent stories about his performance as CEO of an investment group that bought troubled companies, fired lots of people then sold the companies reminded me that the very same group bought the company I work for, fired 10 to 15 percent of the employees and restructured everything into a lean, mean company with thousands of seriously over-worked employees. Hey, we needed some restructuring and there was definitely plenty of inefficiency, but they went too far. Was he the guy in charge when that process began? Hmmm. I do not have a problem with his religion, as some people do, and I do not automatically believe his so-called flip-flopping is an issue … changing one’s mind when presented with new information can be a good quality. Does he flip-flop on core values? I don’t know. Do we know what his core values are? Maybe, maybe not. Do we know what President Obama’s core values are? Not sure. I don’t see either of them as being bad for the country, I just don’t know much about their real beliefs. That is the core of the problem with American politics, in my opinion … it’s all a game and everything is based on electability, saying what advisers say we want to hear. That kind of brings me back to Ron Paul, a candidate who seems to be running his own show. I’m just not sure I like his script.

I laugh at every debate. I watch these candidates trying to craft their message. I feel sad that solving problems often isn’t center stage. Presidential elections should not be drama or comedy. Obama didn’t cause our current problems and neither did Bush. It’s much more complex than that. I have a gut feeling that Obama is working things around in such a way that some problems will get fixed before the November elections. My prediction from a few months ago stands: the race will be between Obama and Romney, the Republicans will continue to shoot themselves in the foot, they won’t be able to make a case that their guy is really any better than the incumbent, Obama will win by a very small margin and the Repubs will find a clearly strong candidate by the next time. Hopefully both sides will start to focus on problem-solving and stop giving us drama and comedy. This stuff just isn’t funny.

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