Moderate Voters and the Presidency

Picture courtesy of the White House

Having seen the last two Presidential elections decided by the narrowest of margins one could conclude that our nation is truly divided. The days of your standard Democrat or Republican are long gone and that may just be a good thing. Unlike the days of old when people voted a straight party ticket, the times and the instant media has changed that constant. Our votes are no longer assumed to be in any political party’s camp just because we are from any particular nationality or religious group.

When I first registered to vote decades ago, I asked my father how I should vote. I was just an eighteen year old kid and I had no clue as to what voting was about other than the fact that it was really important that I do it and that my father and I would go to the polls together. His reply was exactly what he was taught as a young man from Irish immigrant parents. “You vote for the Democrats and you vote for the ones that have Irish last names.” There were no issues other than nationality involved and I’m sure many people grew up with and voted with the same ideology.

Today, voting is very different. Elections are very different and so are the candidates. It almost seems like the gene pool has gone wrong and most of if not all of them have lost touch with the you and me part of the equation of American politics. Being a politician in a national race is more of a business than it is about serving your country. At times I honestly believe the heart of the process was railroaded and gobbled up by the millionaire club in a hostile takeover. Think quick and ask yourself who doesn’t have a campaign war chest under one hundred million dollars that is being taken seriously because of the media imposed selection process?

Our nations main stream media is following the money trail of the campaign war chest’s and to put it simply it is a business decision. They tell the American people who they assume are morons who has the best message from each political party because the advertising dollars flow from the top down. Advertising checks are cashed and candidate A from party Z gets coverage. Any candidates with no dollars to toss down the bottomless pit of the main stream media are ostracized from political coverage. It’s just business for the MSM but the ultimate loser is the American voter because the message of all the candidates is lost in the search for advertising dollars by the MSM that is in your home every single day.

Is that what the process of electing a President has become. I’ve heard it time and time again, if any candidate does not have one hundred million dollars to spend they will never see the office of President. What happened to voting for a candidate for what they stand for other than the almighty dollar? This makes me think that there is indeed a price tag on the four year lease at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue! Dollars talk and what America really needs walks.

Getting back to assuming you have my vote and you will not till I pull the lever or fill in the ballot to vote. It amazes me and bothers me that certain political parties claim ownership of any organization of people in America. I was reading a piece on line where they talked about the Republicans Party thinking that they owned or could count on Evangelical’s in our nation staying true and voting a straight Republican vote. Then there was another post claiming that Democrats owned or could count on our nations labor and Unions to stay true to the blue vote.

How do they figure they have anyone’s vote? Evangelical’s are pissed off for the most part because our nation’s leaders have not been the people they said they were. God and country became God and what is in it for me or do as I say and not what I do. Our nation’s Unions are pissed off because our leaders no longer support organized labor unless there is an election coming up. Telling the public what you want to hear and doing it are two different things during a campaign. Promises are made and actions afterward are two very different things.

I truly fear that America will never be able to elect an honest man or woman to the highest office in the land because his or her soul has already been sold out to the highest bidder. I’m still voting though! There is always hope.

Which one of these jerks is Irish? O'Bama, that sounds Irish…

Papamoka