My love is politics, and sports is a very close 2nd. So in my free time or when I’m working, I’m usually thinking about one of the two. While I was working the other day, I thought to myself, how did we get here? A country as great as America once was, how in the hell did we get here? I started to think about the 90’s and the Clinton years; moreover, I was trying to think about what changed from then to the present. We can state the obvious, it’s the Presidents fault. That argument has a lot of merit. There’s no doubt that George W. Bush & Barack Obama are economic failures. Anyone who tries to argue this is a fool. Not even worth your time. Then I started to think about our elected officials in the house and senate. They have failed their constituents miserably.
Next, I started to think about the big picture and how these people were voted into office. How did George W. Bush get reelected in ’04? I was a young kid then, and I remember the news being nothing but anti-war sentiment..every station. The republicans will say they rallied the grassroots, and they did..but is the grassroots really big enough to outweigh independents and democrats? On the flip side though, John Kerry was as bad as they came; furthermore, I would liken him to John McCain in terms of terrible Presidential candidates. Four years later we were in a bigger mess then in ’04. Lesson learned. NOT!!
In 2008, a young Senator from Illinois ran for President, and America fell in love with him. This was something that my generation has never seen. Barack Obama was a rock star but he had virtually no past and 0 experience. How did he get elected? Have the American people stopped caring about their Presidents past? If so, I would like to know when that happened. The worst part about it is the republicans settled and elected John McCain as their nominee. That election was embarrassing for republicans, and to this day they are still feeling the repercussions from it. Not because of the issues but the image of the party. Old and out of touch.
Moreover, in 2012, we’re seeing the exact same thing we did in ’04. Democrats are “rallying the grassroots,” and the republicans don’t seem to have an answer for it. The democrats are coming off of a convention that seriously rallied their base…poll numbers indicate that. I know a few liberals who were very disappointed with Obama and after the convention they’re acting like it’s ’08 again. For the life of me I don’t understand it. We’ve seen the kind of policies this President wants to put into place and the one’s that he did put in place. Do people honestly think it’s best for the country? In ’04 did voters really think George W. Bush’s policies were good for the country?
The point of this rant is to show that the American people are completely out of the loop when it comes to politics. Is the media to blame? Yes! Absolutely! But at some point, educated human beings have to think for themselves. I say educated because most voters have at least graduated high school. By the way, the whole purpose of the American public school system was to have educated voters. They thought if everyone is going to have the opportunity to vote (everyone being men at that time), than they had to be educated. Sadly, we are proving that system wrong. Any rational thinking person can look at the last four years and say we are not better off. Look at the deficit! It’s going up at a faster rate than Bush was taking it, and it’s only been 4 years!
I am in no way saying Romney is better because we honestly don’t know. What I am trying to say is we have to take a different path. If America really wanted to see “change” they would vote in a third party candidate. Whether it be libertarian, green, or even an independent for crying out loud. When you really get down to it, outside of social issues, there is very little difference in both parties. Listen to the debate going on about medicare. Sure Romney wants to change medicare but the liberals don’t even realize the hypocrisy in their own argument. Obamacare took $716B from medicare to pay for Obamacare. Wake up America!
Political Hippo 