What people don’t understand in presidential elections is that each candidate has to address all the issues in some form, and thus, each candidate will have to make it seem like they are unique from the others through small changes, small differences ideology or overall purpose.
This is the sad part about American politics. I don’t know whether it’s the politicians or it’s the people, but there are only so many issues that can be discussed in so many different ways. And if we could make and mold a candidate to individually fit the specific permutation of stances on the given set of issues, we’d have many, many more candidates to choose from. Let’s see, I’m for a women’s right to choose, I’m for giving illegals a penalty, but I’m against deportation. I’m for cutting the cords on lobbying in DC, but I’m also for giving people the responsibility of acquiring their own health care insurance plans. I don’t think the gold standard is coming back anytime soon, and I do hate this deficit spending. If only Bush hadn’t conned America into going to Iraq. And we need to invest in alternative energies, pronto!
One example, in the Republican debates, I don’t understand why Mitt Romney was so focused on whether John McCain’s plans gave people amnesty or not. The question of amnesty was irrelevant. Each candidate had a plan for immigration reform that involved some rhetoric involved with getting on the back of the line, paying a penalty, and issuing some type of identification card (which by the way is a Green card, either you’re legal and you have one, or you’re illegal and you don’t have one). Romney continued with his stupidity arguing whether McCain was actually advocating amnesty or not. I can’t believe any American would actually change who they vote for based on the usage of one single word.
Furthermore, it’s not as if any candidate will physically change America in an instant. As Charlie Gibson mentioned, Washington is designed to prevent legislation from going through. It might be years before the changes to the all of the issues mentioned by these political candidates are actually dealt with in any effective way.
All this talk about the issues doesn’t mean anything. People have to vote for the person they feel will lead this country effectively. People should vote for the candidate they feel has the right philosophy for how to govern rather the one that adheres to all of their beliefs and principles. It is this governing philosophy that is what affects Americans more than a stance on any one issue. To truly get an idea about how one candidate views an issue, one needs to listen to an hour long lecture from that particular candidate on specifics of how we have to go about a certain problem. A good example of hour-long lectures that people can listen to is the Candidates@Google series where John Edwards, Barack Obama, Ron Paul, and others have actually spoken on issues concerning the environment and the role of technology in society.
In my mind, the only candidates that have actually put forth their philosophy of how they will govern are Barack Obama and Ron Paul. The rest of them all talk about experience and having the ability to balance budgets (stupid Richardson). Now, somehow Edwards and Obama have colluded to overthrow Clinton so Edwards is buying into the whole “agent of change” bit. Although I have to wonder if this whole alignment of Edwards and Obama is a ploy by Clinton (Hillary or Bill) to suck away votes from Obama. I really like the idea of having a transparent government, where individual voters can track the spending of the government, something that I think both Edwards and Obama would support. The whole idea of standing up to lobbyists and powerful special interests has me excited.
