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Sunday, November 4, 2012

The choice is ours

Two days. It seems these past four years have flown by. A lot has changed during that time.
  • No more wars of choice.
  • No more retribution for putting out a hit on the president's father.
  • No more "nucular."
  • No more vice-president swearing at a Senator on the floor of the Senate.
  • No more slurs by a deputy Secretary of Defense to a comedian.
  • No more "you're either with us or against us" false choices.
  • No more condemning a music act for speaking truth.
  • No more "you're on your own" with healthcare.
  • No more "Axis of Evil."
  • No more Osama bin Laden.
On Tuesday, this nation has a choice to make. It's a very clear choice, actually, despite all the even poll numbers. Forward or backward. The 99% or the 1%. The 100% or the 53%. Simple.

I could run the numbers and give a few dozen reasons for Barack Obama being given another term. I don't want to do that. This choice, this week, will have strong ramifications for decades to come. As President Clinton said at the Democratic National Convention this summer, no president in the history of this country could have turned around the economy in just 4 years. That's how deep the recession truly was.

As I've said many times during these closing months, my biggest fear - other than the manipulating of the ballots themselves, which is already going on in Florida and Ohio - is that too many millions
of Americans can't, or choose not to, realize that this was not an American recession. It was and continues to be a worldwide financial disaster. It's not just a "dinner table" or a Main Street vs. Wall Street issue.

The financial institutions that made the calculated (and way too complicated for me to comprehend) credit default swaps are either out of business or doing very well. No in-between. Kind of like the way that Mitt Romney sees the country. There's the haves, his fellow 1% ers, who provide the financial fuel for the advancement of the economy.  Except they don't. Then there's the other 99% of us who have good times and bad times, but occasionally need help from the governmental safety net. He doesn't care for us, especially the 47% that he denounced with so much hatred for being lazy, dependent upon the government for their everything forever. Just write 'em off. But here's the bizarre thing: those who at this time, this moment, may be in the 47% temporarily, through no fault of their own, will turn out for Romney. The solid, redneck, poor, low information South will give Romney his largest turnout. Amazing.

President Obama inherited an America on January 20, 2009, that in many ways barely resembled the one he had won the presidency of less than three months sooner. He had to learn on the fly. He had to save the American automotive industry. He had to get health care reform passed, something presidents since FDR had been unable to push through. He had to overcome the new rules put in place by Republicans - such as Oklahoma's idiotic pair, James Inhofe, who still believes climate change and, more importantly, man's role in it, is a myth, and Tom Coburn, lovingly referred to as "Dr. No" for his habit of putting a hold on any bill he thinks is unconstitutional - that required 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate, rather than the previous simple majority of 51, or face filibuster.

Obama has accomplished a lot and he knows there is more work to do. Romney doesn't need the job or the headache or the attention. Let him take his magic underwear to his house with the car elevator
and stay out of politics. He's just a rich guy, whose always been rich and wants to help his friends keep their money. He has dodged answering questions on climate change and really anything and the right has let him skate by. This is the last guy left on the island. The GOP went through so many courtships with increasingly insane candidates until only one remained.

On Tuesday, since Romney sees no need to answer questions, I hope that we as a nation are smart enough to answer this one correctly: Obama or Romney?

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