A Quick Post on the Last Debate and Upcoming Election

That debate last night was rather boring.  I felt like Romney was just trying to find something to pick at with Obama’s foreign policy, but the two seemed to be more in agreement on most things than not.  Obama took jabs at Romney for some comments he made about who the biggest threat to American security was (Russia and NOT al-Qaeda), and Romney criticized Obama for not putting in crippling sanctions against Iran sooner, but other than that it was rather ho-hum.  Of course, I went to bed at 10, so maybe I missed something in the last half hour or whatever.  If I did, shame on me!

But I came away from it thinking that Obama is a better leader for our country than Romney.  Yeah, people think he hasn’t done enough in his 3.75 years in office, but I really have to disagree.  And here’s why: on 9/11/2001 the World Trade Center Twin Towers were destroyed.  I was in Manhattan a few weeks ago, and the Freedom Tower is a beautiful piece of architecture, but it is still being built—eleven years after the worst tragedy in our nation’s history.

When Obama took office our economy was on the path to becoming the worst economy in our nation’s history.  We were inches away from slipping into a depression.  We were fighting two wars, people were losing their homes in droves, unemployment was sky-rocketing, auto manufacturers were ready to close their doors and put hundreds of thousands out of work.  The economy that Bill Clinton had built had been destroyed in the eight years that George W. Bush was in office.

I think people give George W. too much flak.  Ok, maybe he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but he had a lot on his plate.  Yeah, maybe we shouldn’t have gotten into a war in Iraq, but it was bound to happen sooner or later—just like some sort of conflict in Syria and Iran will happen sooner or later as well.  And with 9/11 and Katrina, George W.’s presidency was one heck of a wild ride.  It’s like the country had one gushing wound after another, and all he had to work with was band-aids and a little iodine.

I don’t think anyone realized the repercussions that all the trauma and turmoil of the 2000’s had on our country.  And we really do live in the moment.  Quick, think back—who won the World Series in 2009?  The Yankees did.  Who won Season Nine of American Idol?   Lee DeWyze.  Do you even remember watching any of those?  Could you even tell me who the runner-ups were or any highlights from those two contests?  Probably not, because we tend to forget things so easily—things that happened just two or three years ago.

Obama has had 3.75 years to rebuild our economy from the brink of destruction.  In the grand scheme of things, that's NOT a lot of time.  And the people that complain that Obama hasn’t done enough for the country are the same people who switch lanes on the freeway over and over, hoping that one lane will move faster than the other.  I watch those people and get so irritated.  Look, you impatient morons, don’t you realize that people JUST LIKE YOU are doing the same thing in front of all of us, causing us all to be backed up?  Or worse yet, the ones that drive up the shoulder or past all the merging traffic to cut in line way up at the front.  Yeah, what’d you save, like two minutes?  Patience is a virtue, people.

And that’s what I think about Obama.  I think that if he gets another four years to work with, when his presidency is in the history books, people will look back and see that he really did do a wonderful thing for a country that was slumping on so many levels.  And I'm afraid that if he doesn't get that four more years, Romney may take us backwards again.  And I'm just not comfortable with that.

Romney, the Bully - Part 2

I’m a day late with this, I know.  At least I’m not a dollar short, which I say because of a funny incident that happened over the weekend.  We were at a festival in Alexandria, Pennsylvania, and my son was being cranky.  We walked to the one end of the festival, and a guy there was selling yo-yo balloons.  We asked if he wanted one, he repeatedly said no, so we then walked all the way back—and what did he do but, you guessed it, started whining for the yo-yo.  My wife chided, “Adam, you’re a day late and a dollar short.”  And he replied, in his oh so whiny voice, “I’m NOOOT a day late and a dollar short!”  Very funny coming out of the mouth of a 3-year-old.

Anyway, in watching the second debate, I couldn’t help but notice how much my post from the other day regarding Mitt Romney was dead on.  The man is still just as much of a bully as he was before.  I realize Obama and Romney were debating—arguing—and that rough demeanors need to be present in that type of format, but Romney just wouldn’t let certain subjects go.  He continued to talk over the moderator, refusing to shut up at times.  I was watching this on CNN with the continuous plus/minus meter of how the voters were responding to the dialogue, and each time Romney talked over or tried to steer the debate in an already exhausted direction, the meter dipped well into the negative.  I really don’t think he realizes his tone and language can be taken as demeaning at times.

Unless you pay no attention to the Internet (how’d you end up here reading my blog??), you know all about Romney’s “binders full of women” comment.  If you look at the facts, apparently a women’s rights group ran a study and found women in leadership roles lacking, and so they put together some candidates and gave them to the Massachusetts government just when Romney became the governor.  Like they said to him, "Here, do something about this."  He didn't go out and put together "binders full of women" on his own.  And I appreciate the effort he made in making positions available to women, but did he have binders full of candidates from other minorities?  Did he have a binder full of gays and lesbians?  It just seems like such an odd thing to say.

I don’t think Romney doesn’t mean well.  I think he is an OK guy.  I think everyone is an OK guy or lady until they prove me wrong, and even then I'm always giving people second and third and fourth chances, but that's just one of my character flaws, I guess.  But as for Romney, I just don’t think he realizes how critical he sounds.  His former lieutenant governor, a woman (from a binder?) named Kerry Healey, came out in his defense today and explained his eccentric verbiage.  But that's just part of the problem right there--it seems like Romney is always explaining himself after saying something crass (like his 47% comment).  And he did the same thing all through the second debate.  In fact, I think I only noticed him on the offensive against Obama during two incidents—one regarding gas prices and Obama’s decision to cut oil leases on federal land and another at his wording after the attack on the US embassy in Libya.  Both times Romney aggravated me, with the first going after something that has LITTLE effect on the GLOBAL price of gasoline (especially when the US is producing more oil now than ever), and the second implying that Obama was trying to politicize the murder of Americans in Libya.  Obama fought back, and his line of finding Romney’s suggestion “offensive” won me over.  You could tell Obama was ready to go all gangster on Romney, and yet Romney would not let up, even after the moderator flat out said that Romney had it wrong.

Romney had some firepower on his side going into the debate, and he could have easily won it had he gone about it the way he had with the first.  But his aggressive, bullying side seemed to come out, and I think that’s why he lost.  And I think that’s why he’ll lose the election in a couple of weeks.  Nobody likes a bully.  Especially me.

October is Bullying Prevention Awareness Month.  If you didn’t read my post from October 10^th, go back and check it out here.  No kid needs to be bullied.  It quite literally ruins lives.

I made myself a Stop Bullying t-shirt on Zazzle.com.  This is NOT a non-profit, and the proceeds do NOT go to bullying prevention, but unfortunately I couldn’t seem to find any bullying prevention awareness sites that sold t-shirts, so I made my own.  If you want one, feel free to buy one here or make your own.  Or if you know of a great site that sells them with the proceeds going toward bullying prevention programs, please let me know!  Let’s put an end to this!

And as for Mitt Romney, I wish him all the luck in his future endeavors.  But as for being a President, I just don’t think his personality and character are what we need in our leader.

After Debate One, Who Do I Vote For?

Watching the debate last night, I was struggling with the two positions offered by each candidate on taxes.  On one side you have Romney, who doesn’t want to raise taxes on the richest Americans and wealthiest corporations because he’s afraid that if we do, they will just cut jobs.  Then you have Obama, who wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest to cut down on the national debt.  Both sides make logical points.  But here’s what I don’t get:

My family pays 25% of our income to federal taxes.  Mitt Romney pays only 13%.  Mitt Romney made 250 times what my family made last year.  If he had paid what we pay, 25% rather than 13%, that’s $2.4 million going back to the federal government to pay down the national debt.  I’m pretty good at math, but even if I weren’t, I could still see a problem here.  AND, Mitt Romney’s former company is the poster child for shipping jobs overseas.  So despite all that he said in last night’s debate, I have a hard time believing his tax plans will work for people like me and my family.

And at one point I heard him say he’d dig through the government and cut tons of programs, including subsidies for PBS (even though he “likes Big Bird").  He’d cut anything that required us to borrow more money from China.  So what happens to all of those government jobs?  I agree that government spending is too high, but slashing programs means putting government employees out of work, and that means higher unemployment.  Mr. Romney, you may take that money you’ve saved to pay off a portion of our national debt, but now you’re looking at, what, 10% unemployment?  Then what?

But Obama, man.  What are YOU doing?  Mitt Romney hit you hard when he pointed out that the past four years haven’t really been all that great for people like me and my family.  I understand you had a lot on your plate when you took office—probably more than any other president in the history of our nation—but your rebuttal fell flat.  I really want to vote for you, because again I really don’t trust Mitt Romney, but you have to show me something.  Yeah, we have better healthcare now because of you—and going off on a slight tangent, I loved how Romney pointed out that Obama was referencing bipartisan studies that proved Romney’s plans were wrong and right, saying five studies will show it one way and five others will show it another, and then HE attacked Obamacare by referencing studies himself.  Uh, did you not just say independent, bipartisan studies can’t be fully trusted?  But regardless, fixing healthcare was important, but not as important as getting Americans back to work.  And I know Republicans don’t want to work with you—again I loved (sarcastically) how Romney promoted his state healthcare plan as being bipartisan but then shot down Obamacare for being only supported by Democrats, when Republicans aren’t willing to even pass gas, let alone laws, in favor of Democrats (yes I just threw in a fart joke—sorry!)  But despite all of that, Obama, you’ve got to do more to convince America that your plans are better.

Look, I know it takes time to get stuff done.  I have a wall in my house that’s needed patched and painted for over three years now.  It looks ugly, and it devalues my house, but I’ll get to it eventually.  But, hey, that bare drywall isn’t keeping me from putting food on the table.

I don’t like Romney.  I don’t trust him.  I think he’s lived a privileged life and has no idea what Middle Class America needs.  I do like Obama, but his performance last night wasn’t great.  I won’t be voting for Romney, that’s pretty much certain.  But unless Obama can explain what he’s done so far and lays out a timeline for his plans to get the American economy back on track, I may just be a very reluctant voter come November.

And one last comment I have to make…why is it that so many Caucasian males are Republicans?  Just watching CNN’s coverage of the debate last night with the meter for male and female opinions while each politician spoke, males predominantly favored Romney and females favored Obama.  In looking at polls, Obama has the female, black, Hispanic, gay/lesbian votes, and Romney has white men.  In reading message boards and my social media sites, a majority of white guys out there think that Obama is ramming government down their throats, and they want their freedom and believe he is taking it away from them.  Seriously?  Why?  Because you are required to have health insurance now so that you can’t be a deadbeat and raise healthcare costs for others when you need to go have your gallbladder removed and can't pay for it?  Honestly, what other freedoms has he taken away?  Unless you are filthy rich—and considering that our economy isn’t doing all that well, there aren’t that many of you—his plans are better aimed at putting more money in your pocket.  And if you lost your job, he stretched out unemployment benefits to give you a hand.  I just don’t quite get where this animosity toward him comes from.

Here’s a fun fact.  Caucasians make up 74.8% of the U.S. population as of the 2010 census.  Males make up 49%.  That means that white males, on average, make up 36% of the US.  There are 538 members of Congress.  Of them, 85% are white, and 83% are male.  That means, on average, 70% of the members of Congress are white males.  That means that, proportionally, there are twice as many white males leading our country as there are people who live within its borders.  Does anyone else see the problem here?  Our government is elected BY US, the People, and yet we have filled it with way too many people from the same gender and race.  I’m sorry, but white people, myself included, do not know what it’s like to live as an African American or an Asian American.  I learn this just about every weekend I spend in Harrisburg with my Vietnamese in-laws.  And men, by far, have no idea what it’s like to live as a woman.  My wife and mother were talking about child birth the other day, and while I was only half paying attention (I’ll admit I’m a WHITE MALE), I heard my mother saying that when she was in labor with one of her children, the doctor said to her, “Stop complaining, the pain isn’t THAT bad.”  You know, because men give birth all the time, right?

Here’s another fun fact.  Most drug and alcohol counselors are former addicts themselves.  Why?  Because they’ve been there.  They can relate.  People go to support groups for help from others who have been in the same situation.

So why is it that we don’t have more diversity in Congress?  The 15^th Amendment gave blacks the right to vote in 1870.  The 19^th Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920.  Yet here we are, nearly 100 years later, and we still, overwhelmingly, have more men vote than women and more whites vote than any other race.  I suppose one could argue that women have less interest in politics than men, and that more immigrants nowadays are non-whites, meaning that there are far fewer Asian or Hispanic citizens.  But I don’t buy that.  When you have people like Todd Akin—who seemingly has no clue how the female body works and publicly aired his ignorance to the entire nation—still in a tight race against Claire McCaskill, A WOMAN, for Missouri’s senate seat, THAT’S A HUGE FREAKING PROBLEM!

Bottom line: white men don’t have all the answers, people.  If we did, dance floors across the nation would look absolutely ridiculous, fashion would be non-existent, fantasy football draft day would be a national holiday, and going to the doctor once every five years would be the norm.  I don’t think that’s the kind of country we want to live in.  Am I wrong?