Opinion: 2008 Election: crisis of presidential proportions
With only two weeks before this country chooses a new president, it’s necessary to consider what this country faces.
An economic crisis? Check. A weak financial and foreign standing in the world? Check. A fragile social security system? Check. A broken healthcare system? Check.
A selection of competent candidates who can fix these problems? No check.
Unfortunately, the capability of these two senators vying to hold one of the most powerful offices in the world doesn’t seem to match the magnitude of the adversities facing this country today.
For starters, the only person with any executive experience on either ticket, Sarah Palin, is someone who has been governor of one of the least populated states in the union and for a mere 20 months. That, coupled with John McCain using his five years as a P.O.W. as a cop-out for numerous criticisms. Plus, he has explicitly said that he doesn’t know much about the economy, which has hurt the credibility of the GOP ticket. But the Democrats don’t seem to be any stronger on the issues or their records.
The Democratic Party nominee is a junior senator whose only real call to duty has been serving as a community organizer in Chicago. It scares people that if Obama is elected, he, a Democrat, will have both houses of Congress with a majority of his political persuasion, which could lead to partisanship that this country must avoid.
His running mate, Joe Biden, at a point thought that dividing Iraq into three different sections for each major religion was the right thing to do. Despite his length of political experience, his seniority in the Senate has been plagued by the requests for nearly three quarters of a billion dollars in earmarks—all for his vast state of Delaware.
And, as unfortunately shown by the debates, the word “substance” apparently isn’t known by either party.
Are these two tickets the embodiment of what we need or what this great country is capable of? Obviously there is no such thing as a “perfect candidate” or those who don’t have flaws, but certainly there are those who are more capable of solving these problems.
America’s deficit that now sits at nearly $500 billion, and both Obama and McCain’s tax plans will increase the deficit to nearly $800 billion and $1 trillion, respectively, in just their first four years in office. This would only contribute to the national debt that stands at more than $10 trillion.
In one of the most pivotal elections in history where the undecided voter counts for 10 to 15 percent of the electorate and seems to be voting for the lesser of two evils, you know there is a problem.
The only things it seems that all voters can look forward to in this election are the jokes on late-night television and the parodies on Saturday Night Live.
On the bright side, America has endured eight years of failed Bush policies along with two years of Democratic partisanship in congress to hopefully prepare us for the rough four to come. Let’s just hope that an inexperienced liberal senator or economically-incompetent conservative senator can help us reclaim our rightful place on the world stage.