I am sending this out to all my friends who want me to vote for or against Obama or for or against Romney. First of all, yes I wrote the first sentence right. You have already chosen a side for the next election, and I'm glad about that. I'm glad you have the passion of a young child who has learned a bad word. You are willing to say that bad word in every sentence, in every discussion, and what disappoints me about your newfound love for politics is your absolute naïve attitude about politics.

You know what, I get it. Last year I talked about politics, told you to get involved. I said, as a citizen of this country, the greatest thing you could do was vote. Many of my friends voted for the first time, or for the first time in years. I would like you to understand something I did during that election. I didn't say you should vote for McCain or for Obama. Yes, they are the people that are on the top of the ticket but the bigger thing they represent are the ideas of the parties they represent. You look at the party, you look at the person and from there you form an opinion of who you want to vote for. I will show you what each candidate stands for, but I didn't say vote for a particular candidate.

It's not just my friends, but many Americans, in voting in the last election, looked at it as a way to wash their hands of many complicated issues we have in our country. I wrote a few months after the election, and I believe it was around the time of the beer summit, that what Rush Limbaugh had parodied during the election may have been the attitude of a lot of Americans who voted for him. They looked at President Obama as the magic Negro. Like a black Mary Poppins Obama was elected because some people felt good in being a part of history. They could tell their children they were good people because they voted for the first Black President. Just like the vast majority of the Occupy Wall Street people, they were glad to join the crowd when the movement was getting attention, but once the cameras walked away, once the real work was needed to sway legislation, to pass laws, to put politicians feet to the fire, many walked away from the President.

Like any politician voted on because of popularity, once the real work of governing started, people forgot about the slogans, the joy and the work they did to get Obama elected. Their attitude was; he is in office, now he has to work. Any President, from Obama, to Bush, to Clinton, all of them; talk about using political capital to get legislation passed. When they are popular, when they have the people behind them, they can get Congress to to move on laws. When they aren't popular, Congress can be a stubborn thing.

The greatest thing an opposition politician has at their disposal is the short memory of many people. They know people want someone to blame when things are bad and the easiest fall back for many people is to blame the person in charge. It doesn't matter if the person in charge didn't cause the mess they are in; they want to blame someone. I have had too many arguments in the first two years of the Obama Administration where I had people come up to me and say he caused the continued war in Iraq, the FEMA concentration camps, the HARP satellite earthquakes, the BP oil spill, the high price of gas and any other issues that were of concern. While they would blame Bush a little bit, Obama was the real problem, even though the last President was in office 8 years and those concerns weren't an issue with a majority of the people I talked with. Obama was in office 2 years or 3 and he should have fixed the mess; that was their attitude, misguided as it was.

Now, a good portion of the same people I know who voted for Obama because of personality rather than checking out his policies are ready to vote for Romney. Like Obama they didn't bother to check out Romney's resume nor have they seen what the party behind him is all about. They hate Obama, be it because of policies or because they believe the Kenyan, Manchurian candidate, socialist, Marxist rhetoric given by the opposition. They talk of Obama conspiracies yet have ignored, no, before I go on I can't say they have ignored it. They don't know what the other side represents because they only got interested in the campaign a month or two ago. For a year there have been stories about what would be in store for many Americans under a Republican Administration and a lot of the population have had blinders on for that. In the past month I have had two people I know come up to me in astonishment as to what the Republicans have done in state legislatures around the country. I told them about this many months ago, told them about articles and TV reports, but for whatever reason it took over six months for them to put all the pieces together and know they are concerned.

Thankfully, we have less than a month before this election is over. I'm concerned about the outcome but there isn't anything I can do. I can talk, I can write, I can point out, but many in the electorate are moved by emotions, not by research. That's why Romney can give one debate performance, a performance riddled with inaccuracies and lies, and he can be declared a winner of the debate and move up in the polls.

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My View from the Political Sidelines - October 10, 2012
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