So….about This Election

Those of my readers who are U. S. citizens and actually care about politics should be aware that there is a major presidential race taking place. The two “biggies” are President Obama and Governor Romney.  Personally, I am not thrilled over either, but for different reasons.  I have friends who sit on both side of the aisle dividing the sandbox and those who claim to straddle the aisle.  Then, of course, there are those who play in a whole different sandbox and keep telling everyone to come to that one, it is better.

How do I approach this election?  I am voting for Romney, simple as that.  Not because I like all of his politics.  Most certainly I don’t agree with his religious views in the slightest, but then I was no fan of Reagan’s views either.  I hold to a conservative view of government that would make most Republicans blush, but I don’t jump over to third parties who agree with me more.  In the primaries I vote exactly for the guy I want.  In the main election I vote for the person who is closest to my position, even if that is far, far away.  And frankly, Romney is that guy. I am voting for Tommy Thompson too, even though I didn’t vote for him in the primaries either.

There is nothing I approve about our President’s performance and I certainly don’t want four more years of this.  I see huge issues rising on voter registration and I. D. laws.  Immigration and the Supreme Court are both hot issues.  And I see a growing resurgence of stronger conservatism in the Republican party that I believe will force Romney to stay further right than he would be comfortable on his own.  So that is my position.  Don’t like it?  I really don’t care, go vote as you wish.

However, I want to point to two posts that I thought were helpful to read. The first one is from 2008 that interacts with the idea of a third party vote.  The second one  was just posted today and interacts with the math of this election.  Both simply help cement what was already cemented in my mind.

Wilson on Romney

Doug Wilson has an interesting post over at his site explaining why he won’t be voting for Romney in the upcoming election.  The article is worth reading in full but here is a take-away quote:

The one saving grace of having to deal with the Obama administration is that he can’t help but overreach. His love of soft totalitarianism is apparent to all who know how to read and think at the same time. But I would rather have that than have someone drifting in the same general direction in ways that will rarely if ever be guilty of overreach. If Marx and Lenin were candy apple red, then Obama is a dull brick color, and Romney is Alecia Beth Moore, better known as Pink.

Ron Paul vs Rick Santorum

Doug Wilson has a gift for writing, one that he has honed for years.  He also has a great gift of looking at things from a fresh angle which in turn helps me think more thoroughly on subjects.  With the election looming I have many points where I am undecided and found much help in this article of his.  Here is an excerpt (but I would read the whole thing):

“

John Adams once said that our Constitution presupposes a moral and a religious people. It is wholly unfit, he said, for any other. Now how can this help us sort out our discussions of Rick Santorum and Ron Paul?

Let us set aside (for a moment) what I think folks in our circles would agree to be lapses in judgment on the part of both men. Rick Santorum shouldn’t have voted for No Child Left Behind, team or no team, and Ron Paul shouldn’t have supported the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for the American military. Let’s deal with these men at their best, as representatives of two different tactical approaches to fixing the mess that America has gotten into.

Using the terms in a similar way that they were used in the debates about ratifying the Constitution in the first place, let’s call them the federalist and anti-federalist approaches. The anti-federalists were suspicious of centralization, and it was their pressure that caused the Bill of Rights to be added to the Constitution.

Anybody who has followed this blog for any length of time knows that when it comes to questions of constitutional process, I am an anti-federalist to the back teeth, as is Ron Paul. Rick Santorum, not so much. So why, then, am I as sympathetic to Santorum as I have been, and as semi-critical of Paul as I have been? What’s with that, hey?

It has to do with the fact that, according to John Adams (who expresses my sentiments at this point very well), the Constitution is “wholly unfit” for the American people as we currently are. Wholly unfit is a pretty damning indictment.”