Romney Pulling a Kennedy on Religion

Mitt Romney is going to give a speech at former President George H. W. Bush Library in Texas to defend, define, explain or totally confuse the Christian right wing of his Republican Party.

In the words of former Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas Governor Romney…”You Sir are no Jack Kennedy”.

Let me first say that if someone in America thinks your personal religious practice and belief is a reason not to vote for you then you don’t want their vote. Religious faith is what most American’s have on Sunday when they put on the very best clothes that they have and attend whatever service they practice. You smile nice to the widows and widowers and of course pat the young children on the head that look so angelic in their Sunday best. All is well in the world and God is pleased.

Come Monday morning they revert back to being the jerk boss that eyes the nineteen year old receptionist with thoughts of lust, or the cranky garage mechanic owner that will overcharge you for labor and parts that never existed. God forbid they recognize one another in the liquor store or choose not to look one another in the eye. Come Monday the services are ended and it all becomes business as usual where everyone is trying to screw everyone else.

Mitt Romney explaining his religious belief as a Mormon is a bad decision and this one will cost him New Hampshire and Iowa. Why that is what will happen is simple, none of the other candidates are explaining their religion. They do not have to and neither should Mitt. The guy was elected in the bluest of the blue states of Massachusetts as Governor because he simply had the right message at the right time. Put another way, if there were a war in Massachusetts with Republican’s fighting Democrat’s, there would be three hundred Democrat troops and one Republican. Overwhelming odd’s and yet Mitt was elected Governor. Religion had no realistic play in the voters minds. Mike Huckabee is posting advertisements with bold print “Christian Leader”? He obviously is not running from his faith!

President Kennedy needed to defend and explain his religious stance if elected because of the direct link to a religious leader in the Vatican called the Pope. In the Catholic faith you can be excommunicated for failing to follow the Pope’s decree. American voters at that time were concerned about a President possibly bound by an outside influence from a foreign land and rightfully so. That was a risk for him personally and it was something that Kennedy was willing to face to serve our people if that was what the Pope ordered on any decision he made as President of our nation. Kennedy put his faith to the side but did not give it up entirely as he simply understood the Presidency of the United States of America was not about him or his faith as an individual but it was entirely about the greater good of the nation.

That is a huge difference when compared to what Mitt Romney is going to offer and he isn’t giving this speech to defend his personal faith. He’s doing it for votes from a base that he really does not want. That is the reality of what his speech will be about and the Christian Conservative Right will see right through it.

President Kennedy was almost fifty years ago in expressing his religious belief and the concerns of the separation of church and state issue. We as a people have a much larger tolerance for religion, race and sex of our political candidates these days and Mitt Romney just does not get that. Maybe all the trips out of the state he was supposed to be Governing didn’t have a chance to let reality reach him.

Here in New England some folks call us prudes when it comes to our religion or belief in God. Screw them! If someone questioned your faith no matter where you live, how many seconds would be on that time watch before you slugged the SOB? Big Mistake Mitt… HUGE!

American’s do not elect people based on where you go to church, we elect people to the highest office on what your ideas are to make our nation better.

I’m jumping in the shower. I just realized I’m offering advice to a Republican candidate for President. I feel dirty for some odd reason.

Papamoka

Feel free to link to this post…

Cross posted at Michael Linn Jones and Bring IT ON!

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Stuck in the Middle

In every person there is the ability to do what is right and what is wrong. In politics it is the same thing. When people claim to be a left leaning liberal but they believe in the death penalty then they are not really a true liberal. In the same breath, when people claim to be a right leaning conservative but do not back the death penalty it does not make them a true right side of the aisle persona. On many issues we as a people can agree upon but the last couple of elections have labeled moderate Democrats and Republicans as either with us or against us. Some of us square pegs will never fit in that round hole if you know what I mean.

Stuck in the middle is what we are. I am a died in the wool person of liberal thoughts and actions but not all of my actions or reactions to any issue is what a true liberal is. When I see a police officer killed in the line of duty, I want to see the animal that killed them face the same sentence. I believe that life is sacred but in the same sense I don’t believe that anyone other than the woman pregnant should have a say as to how she deals with her personal situation. Some people including many churches would call me to task on that but in most instances it would be a man telling me how a woman has no rights when it comes to her body.

Religion in America is part of our political process but not part of our laws. Brilliance in our founding fathers was not lacking when they wrote the Constitution. If our nation was founded on religious reasons then we would always be at war to defend our nations faith. Separation of religion from our form of government is necessary to ensure that all of our people across American have the opportunity to live free. You as a person may not care for a particular lifestyle or choice of religious belief or lack there of but in the same context, they may not care for your choices either.

Stuck in the middle. Could it be that we are not really stuck in the middle but more open minded to many sides of America? While you shop down at the corner market you pick the items you trust but every once in a while you buy a new item. Same thing goes with politics and picking a candidate. If the new detergent will take out the stains and pains of the last decade or two then I for one am willing to give it a try. Sitting in the middle or moderate voter seats gives you the better view for the movie that is Presidential elections. You are not blinded by hypocrisy or religious dogma on who should be President. You have the upper hand because you can make decisions based on what you feel and not what you are told to feel as a person.

Check out the positions of all of the candidates and give the guy or gal in the number four or five spot (according to the MSM) a look.

Joe Biden, John Mcain, John Edwards, Bill Richardson and Ron Paul deserve to be looked at in the election of our next President.

Then again, so does Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney and Rudi Giuliani. The only difference is that some of them are claiming to have the election already locked up and in the bag with overflowing campaign war chests.

Have you voted yet? I haven’t!

Papamoka

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Joe Biden the Real Deal

Picture courtesy of JoeBiden.com

Of all the politicians running on the Democrat side of the aisle for President I am finding that Senator Joe Biden is more and more interesting. Unlike many of the other candidates he is not running for the middle but for reality. Granted the man is known for his ability to talk a tree to death but the content of that speech before the tree finally fell over was pretty damn good.

I’m of the firm belief that all politicians are full of false promises based on what the people want to hear today. And yet I honestly do not come to that conclusion when it comes to Joe Biden. What I do find with Senator Biden is that he does not need a staff that is savvy on the topics facing our nation today because he lives it and works it every single day.

Out in Iowa they are lucky enough to get to know the candidates that dare to stop in at the local coffee shops and chat. Unlike a pre screened audience for the mega stars of the Democrats, Senator Biden shows up and just talks to the folks that are willing to listen. The more he talks the more convincing his ideas are to Iowan’s.

Over at The New York Times they have this piece on Senator Biden and his coffee shop hopping campaign for President…

A Senate Star Sparkles Less on the Stump

By MICHAEL COOPER
Published: October 9, 2007

Snip and jump to the meat of the article…

So Mr. Biden has begun engaging Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, asking at nearly every stop how they can square their recent votes to stop financing the war in Iraq — Mr. Biden voted to continue the financing — with their recent concessions that they cannot guarantee all the troops will be home by 2013.

Over the summer, when Mr. Obama called for striking at terrorist camps in Pakistan if the Pakistanis fail to do so, Mr. Biden questioned his foreign policy acumen by saying that he was describing existing policy. And Mr. Biden, who calls Mrs. Clinton a friend, said in the interview that even though he did not blame her for being a polarizing figure, it should concern voters who want to see a Democrat elected president.

“It’s really not her fault,” he said of the strong reaction toward Mrs. Clinton over the years. “But you know, and people know, there is going to be that great ‘vast right wing conspiracy’ — it’s going to mobilize. And I think people are going to start sitting there thinking, whoa, wait a minute. Do we want to go there again?”

At several stops he sharply criticized Mrs. Clinton’s recent vote to name the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a sponsor of terrorism. “The idea of giving the president an excuse to be able to go to war with Iran I found absolutely mindless,” he said. “I was dumbfounded when Hillary voted for it.” - New York Times

For some odd reason I do not trust the theory that you have to have one hundred million bucks in the bank to run for President of the United States. Popularity is fine but if you do not have the substance to back up your speech then what good is the popularity contest? Television advertisement is nice but actually talking to the voters one on one is becoming a lost style of campaigning for President.

I’m sure that the airwaves in Iowa and New Hampshire are being flooded with the top three from each party but you have to wonder how often the top three are actually there in the respective states? I’ve never been one to believe all that I see in a television commercial when it comes to candidates running for office. Given the past elections where Swift Boats slammed Kerry and Dan Rather slammed Bush for his service record I no longer trust the television advertisements. Post election, the Swift Boats lost their credibility and so did Dan Rather.

This race is not over and done with in Iowa and the people there see Joe Biden in small groups and most walk away with a changed perspective and vote. “Do not trust the national polls that tell you where the candidates stand, look at the polls of where the next vote is happening.” (Thank you Jay Severin of 96.9 FM Talk WTKK in Boston for that quote) Why that happens is that Senator Biden does not tell you what you want to hear, he tells you how to fix it. From Iraq, to Iran, to Afghanistan, he has a plan to end the wrongs and make it right. Bringing America back to the world table of diplomacy is a meal Joe Biden knows how to cook and it all starts with one voters decision that big money campaigns will not buy their vote.

Papamoka

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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

Virginia Tech Massacre Hits Home in Mass.

Picture Courtesy of The Boston Herald

My heart and soul are praying for all the parents that have already received the call that their baby was a victim of the madman at Virginia Tech. There is no way to express my sorrow to the many Mothers and Fathers and the rest of the families or friends of the victims for what happened at Virginia Tech.

I’m shocked, disgusted, outraged, and fearful for our nation’s youth. America is no longer that safe haven where apple pies and a Chevrolet are the norm. Sending our sons and daughters away to college is never going to be the same again. What was once a right of passage for a young adult became many parents all across America’s nightmare? I will be praying for all of the families of this devastating event in our nation’s history and praying that it can never happen again.

The Boston Herald has this to say about the Mother in Saugus that lost her son…

Saugus mother mourns son,
By Joe Dwinell, Jessica Van Sack, Laurel J. Sweet, Jessica Heslam/ Dave Wedge, Michael Givens and Anita DavisTuesday, April 17, 2007

The bloodiest shooting rampage in the nation’s history has claimed the life of a promising young Saugus man, a sophomore gunned down in his morning French class at Virginia Tech.

“I just got word he was of the ones killed in the classroom,” said a sobbing Lynnette Alameddine moments after a chaplain called with word that her 20-year-old son, Ross Alameddine, was among the dead. She was too grief-stricken to speak further.

Earlier last night, the tormented Saugus mother was waiting by her phone. She spent hours calling police and hospitals, which she said were unresponsive to her frantic pleas for information. – The Boston Herald

I’ll be thinking of the families over the weeks to come. This is not and should not be a political issue for people to talk about now. Many families have lost so much and for no logical reason.

It would be wise for the mainstream media to not so quickly lay blame and I am just as guilty of it from my previous post. That was my gut reaction and I apologize to anyone offended.

What is your gut reaction to this horrible event?

Papamoka

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