Political analysts have said in order to win a presidential debate neither candidate can come off as "a college professor." Have we gotten to the point in our society that even the President of the United States has to hide his intelligence? Call me an elitist radical Liberal but I'd rather have a President who can speak in more than sound bites for answers. Who throws out more than just random quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma
Gandhi who has actually read the works of theses individuals. Someone who seeks out the opinions of to college professors, and teachers and the people in the factories. I want someone who is educated, is knowledgeable about global affairs. There is a quote from the TV Show the West Wing which I think sums up what a lot of people have forgotten: "There are times when we're fifty states and there are times when we're
one country, and have national needs. And the way I know this is that
Florida didn't fight Germany in World War II, or establish civil rights." Michigan didn't rescue the city of Detroit or the auto workers. States didn't repeal don't ask don't tell allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military. While we're on that subject it's not that the homosexuals weren't in the military before they simply had to hid who they were. States didn't desegregate the military for African Americans or Women for that matter.
You want someone who can condense the nations problems and solutions into a two minute sound bite. I want someone who understands that most days a two minute sound bite solution won't cut it in this global economy. Because make no mistake call it a dollar, a yen, a euro, a pound it's all still money and we're all dependent upon each other. The wars in the Middle East drove up the price of oil and gas not because the President said "oh let's set the price at $5 a gallon today." but because they were burning oil fields in the Middle East causing oil shortages which then caused prices to rise. Don't believe me watch the documentary series "The Prize part 4 War and Oil" I watched it in my COLLEGE World History course which I took as an elective after I graduated so I could then go back and take a test on World History to get my Social Science teaching credential. So yes, I'm one of those college educated elite snobs. Only one of my 5 cousins to go to college. Why? In part, because I took out student loans and a Pell Grant like the ones Romney wants to cut so I could graduate. It took me nine years of going to school but I got my BA then a few years later I took out more loans to pay for a teaching credential program. I want someone who doesn't spout platitudes about asking your parents for the money for school. My dad was unemployed my senior of high school and couldn't help me the first few years I was in college. My mom raised me as a single parent and is a nurse and at that time didn't make a whole lot of money as a manager. I want someone who knows what it's like to have a mountain of debt hanging over your head just so you can get a college education. I want someone who's going to look after those of us who get stuck in the middle.
You want someone who can speak to the Snookies and Honey Boo-Boo of this world. Who can speak to the lowest form of intelligence on this planet, the reality TV star while being in a higher tax bracket than even the Kardashians. You want "a man of the people." Nobody I know makes billions of dollars. My mom's a retired nurse, my dad's a retired computer programmer and my step mom's a retired legal secretary. None of them make billions of dollars not even a million combined. Speaking of employment it's not the the unemployed/underemployed are lazy or haven't bothered to look for work. In the case of the unemployed, their unemployment's run out so the government stopped counting them and stopped caring. The underemployed like me are too busy working multiple jobs to stay afloat. I want the person who put auto workers back to work, who ended the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who says yes we need to keep the military strong but let's stop giving billions to military contractors for machines that don't work. Let's take that money and give it to the schools, to PBS (yes give it to Big Bird), pay off some of our debt. The only person willing to admit the budget's still a mess is the person who inherited it from the Republicans and specifically George W. Bush. Notice the Republicans aren't aligning themselves with that President. They don't want to remind people of the mess this country was in 4 years ago under a Republican President.
So I leave you with another quote from the TV Show "The West Wing": "Every once in a while, every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren't very many un-nuanced moments in leading a country that's way too big for ten words. I'm the President of the United States, not the President of the people who agree with me. And by the way, if the left has a problem with that, they should vote for somebody else."
You want someone who can condense the nations problems and solutions into a two minute sound bite. I want someone who understands that most days a two minute sound bite solution won't cut it in this global economy. Because make no mistake call it a dollar, a yen, a euro, a pound it's all still money and we're all dependent upon each other. The wars in the Middle East drove up the price of oil and gas not because the President said "oh let's set the price at $5 a gallon today." but because they were burning oil fields in the Middle East causing oil shortages which then caused prices to rise. Don't believe me watch the documentary series "The Prize part 4 War and Oil" I watched it in my COLLEGE World History course which I took as an elective after I graduated so I could then go back and take a test on World History to get my Social Science teaching credential. So yes, I'm one of those college educated elite snobs. Only one of my 5 cousins to go to college. Why? In part, because I took out student loans and a Pell Grant like the ones Romney wants to cut so I could graduate. It took me nine years of going to school but I got my BA then a few years later I took out more loans to pay for a teaching credential program. I want someone who doesn't spout platitudes about asking your parents for the money for school. My dad was unemployed my senior of high school and couldn't help me the first few years I was in college. My mom raised me as a single parent and is a nurse and at that time didn't make a whole lot of money as a manager. I want someone who knows what it's like to have a mountain of debt hanging over your head just so you can get a college education. I want someone who's going to look after those of us who get stuck in the middle.
You want someone who can speak to the Snookies and Honey Boo-Boo of this world. Who can speak to the lowest form of intelligence on this planet, the reality TV star while being in a higher tax bracket than even the Kardashians. You want "a man of the people." Nobody I know makes billions of dollars. My mom's a retired nurse, my dad's a retired computer programmer and my step mom's a retired legal secretary. None of them make billions of dollars not even a million combined. Speaking of employment it's not the the unemployed/underemployed are lazy or haven't bothered to look for work. In the case of the unemployed, their unemployment's run out so the government stopped counting them and stopped caring. The underemployed like me are too busy working multiple jobs to stay afloat. I want the person who put auto workers back to work, who ended the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who says yes we need to keep the military strong but let's stop giving billions to military contractors for machines that don't work. Let's take that money and give it to the schools, to PBS (yes give it to Big Bird), pay off some of our debt. The only person willing to admit the budget's still a mess is the person who inherited it from the Republicans and specifically George W. Bush. Notice the Republicans aren't aligning themselves with that President. They don't want to remind people of the mess this country was in 4 years ago under a Republican President.
So I leave you with another quote from the TV Show "The West Wing": "Every once in a while, every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren't very many un-nuanced moments in leading a country that's way too big for ten words. I'm the President of the United States, not the President of the people who agree with me. And by the way, if the left has a problem with that, they should vote for somebody else."
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