Election's Getting Closer

Basically, I am a simple guy.  I don't deal with totally accurate numbers and statistics, and probably couldn't remember them anyway.  So, I prefer to deal with general ideas that aren't too complicated and try to make sense of them.  This is just a clever lead-in to a simple discussion of the coming election.  For the record, I am a registered Republican, and have been since George W. Bush was a candidate for the Presidency.  Not that I liked Bush all that much at the time; I just knew that Gore was a slick-talking phony and I didn't want him to be our President.

It seems that Mitt Romney will be leading the fight for the Republicans against the incumbent Barak Obama.  I guess I am a bit ambivalent about Romney - he is somewhat of a smooth talker himself and is pretty good at sticking to his safe talking points.  The good thing is that his talking points are generally what we Conservatives want to hear.  I worry that his personality is not forceful enough to energize the people who need to vote for him.  (I'm thinking of an in-your-face extrovert type like Chris Christie.)  Of all the candidates in the Primaries, my first choice would have been Herman Cain (he came up with a 9-9-9 plan that made a lot of sense); second was Newt Gingrich (he knows a lot about everything and has the ability to articulate); and then Romney in third place.  In my opinion, Romney has one quality that may propel him into the Presidency - a willingness to do whatever is necessary to win.  Case in point - his people dug up enough dirt to get rid of Cain and Gingrich.  Maybe he can use these tactics to find some serious dirt on Obama. 

Here are some of the issues as I see them:

• We desperately need to get our financial house in order - quit spending more than we take in, and eventually reduce the national debt.  Right now, our annual debt service amounts to more than $450 billion , and that is at a rate of about 3% interest.  If the interest goes up to the traditional 5-6%, that amount would take a significant jump.
• Our tax code is an absolute mess.  It should be broad-based and fair, and all the loopholes should be eliminated. (Think FairTax!)
• It is vitally important that we become self-sufficient in energy.  Our energy dependence puts us at a huge disadvantage against the likes of China and the oil producers that we have to buy from.  We have the resources - we just need to use them.
• We need to do something serious about health care.  Five days in a hospital (monitors and pills, no surgery) should not cost over $100,000.
• Figure out a common sense approach to first class education.  The amount we spend per student should produce the best education in the world.

There are a lot more very important issues than I have listed here.  Our assignment is to find out which candidate is going to really deal with our problems.  We, the voters, have the awesome responsibility to put the right person in office.  Remember, all of the problems we are facing right now were caused by the people we voted for and sent to Washington.  If they screwed up or lied to us, it is because we didn't do our homework before we voted.  There is hope, though, because we always get another chance in America, and the next one will happen in November of this year.