My take on the election 2012
Kudos to President Obama; despite the circumstances being ripe for a change in leadership. I personally do not agree with everything with President Obama and was ready for a change – had a viable alternative been presented by the Republican Party. At the end of this entire election process, I am left wondering how it was thrown away.
A viable alternative would have been a person who had core convictions, but willing to compromise some strongly held beliefs to include more people in the policy presented as a solution to our country’s ailments. Unfortunately, the Republican primary process this year ensured only an ideologue would represent the party. To that end, I give kudos to the Republican party leaders because by the time Governor Romney secured the primary, the perception I had of Governor Romney was that of an ideologue.
I wholly disagree with Eric Fehrnstrom, the “adviser” that will be forever be linked to the etch-a-sketch comment in reference to the general election. I do not comprehend the logic that lead Mr. Fehrnstrom to make his statement in this day in age. In this world with the internet, how was the conclusion that people not involved the primary process would not observe the process formulated in his head? Mr. Fehmstrom must have calculated that people would just merely dismiss the primary, which I don’t get. It is the primary process that defines the candidate for the general election.
With the current environment primed and ready for a change, why wasn’t the primary process used to debate policy and policy details? Instead, why was the primary process used for character assassination? The conclusion I derive is that there was no real difference in their plans. One example I cite is the differing candidates’ solutions to solve the national debt crisis. The differences in their plans was merely on how much to cut tax rates. There was no consideration given to increasing the tax rates, even if it was temporary. If one happily receives a temporary tax cut, shouldn’t one also be willing to receive a temporary tax hike? Isn’t that only fair? I don’t know, but I sure would’ve appreciated a discussion around such an idea. Also, by having that discussion, it would’ve allowed the Republicans to discuss where to spend the increased taxes.
One should not craft public policy based on ideology, especially in a non-homogenous society like the United States. Crafting public policy based on ideology only leads to divisiveness as it only serves the people who subscribe to the ideology and excludes everyone else. Perhaps, one day in the near future our elected leaders will agree. I know it sounds simple, especially on paper, but it is merely using the ideas in agreement to build a consensus and then start bartering away differences. It is when ideology comes into the mix that bartering differences away becomes difficult and hence the reason I cannot and will not vote for an ideologue.
