My Many Reasons to Not Vote for Mitt Romney...

I only vote for candidates that I can say I support. I don’t waste it to vote against someone; settling for the lesser of two evils means you still have evil.  I’m not a fan of Mitt Romney; never have liked him, probably never will.  But I also consider Barack Obama to be one of the worst presidents in American history; so I won’t be voting for Obama.  For the first time since the mid-1980s I haven’t felt I could truly support any of the candidates.

So, for the last many weeks I’ve been weighing what truly matters to me and where the two major party candidates align to my beliefs.  Based on that I discovered that even though I wouldn’t vote for Obama, there were many reasons I couldn’t vote ‘for’ Romney either:

Core Beliefs – Romney’s views and positions seem to change based upon whose votes he is attempt to gain at that point in time.  He comes off as someone who will tell you what he thinks you want to hear.  By contrast, President Obama seems to have very strong core beliefs, yet chooses to keep them mostly secret from us and only tells us the little snippets that he wants us to know.  I’m more concerned by what he has NOT shared than what he has. BOTH FAIL

Purpose in Running – Romney’s main objective has been to be President.  It is one thing to run because you have a vision for leadership and that takes you to the Presidency, it is another thing to simply seek the position.  By contrast, since President Obama’s meteoric rise to power, his approach has been ‘Barack’s way or no way’ as if he is the US Emperor rather than US President; which leaves me to believe he too simply sought the power of the position. BOTH FAIL

Jobs – Romney promises to create new jobs.  I certainly don’t have a problem with creating new jobs; but I do have a problem with ANYONE in the government being looked to as the source of those jobs.  We are all better off if the government stays out of our way and allows US private enterprise to do what it has always done best.  Romney claims to be a free enterprise kind of leader, yet he panders for votes by promising something that should be in sharp contrast to what he claims are his views.  By contrast, President Obama has no problem with government being the source of new jobs – so much so that he has expanded the size of government at an alarming rate literally creating a whole bunch of new taxpayer funded jobs.  He also likes to brag about creating over 5 million new private sector jobs – but that’s a lie; the fact checkers say it’s less than 350,000. BOTH FAIL

Moral Ground – I’ll start by saying I find the ‘separation of church and state’ concept to be a bogus one.  It was born from a single sentence, taken out of context, in one letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a minister – not included in ANY official documents.  And yet our society has grasped with gusto at this little straw in its vain attempt to keep God at arm’s length.  That having been said, it’s still good to see a politician be willing to take a stand on moral issues; even if such a stand costs votes.  While this may not be politically wise, it reveals a great deal about the candidate’s character – and that is what I want to see.  On far too many occasions Romney has either waffled on moral issues or has dodged them entirely.  (I mean really, why couldn’t he even laud the tremendous grassroots support of Chick-Fil-A?)  By contrast, President Obama claims to be a Christian but then oversees an Administration that seems bent on knocking the legs out from under Christianity in our nation.  Whether it’s forcing Christian business owners / organizations to pay for contraceptives for employees or using the IRS to restrict First Amendment rights to Free Speech, the Obama Administration has shown itself to be no friend of God. BOTH FAIL

Immigration – Another topic where Romney walks a thin, very moderate line.  Actually he tends to avoid it as much as possible, except to accuse of President Obama of failing, and falls just short of pandering for the votes of those who support granting rights to those in our country illegally.  By contrast, President Obama has very clearly made it known that he has no regard for state sovereignty as he not only overrides state immigration laws, but attempts legal action against those states who have the audacity to try to look out for their needs when his Administration has failed to do so. BOTH FAIL

If I stopped there I would be deadlocked – forced to either go 3^rd Party or not vote for a presidential candidate at all this time around.  But even though I have to cross out both of the candidates in these areas that truly matter to me; there are still a few areas where I may be able to find hope:

Foreign Policy – Romney has very little actual foreign policy experience (unless you include offending the British at the outset of the Olympics).  But he does articulate the concepts of running an international business – and many of those same concepts would serve him well in managing our foreign policy.  By contrast, President Obama’s foreign policy seems to be for the United States to subjugate its status to whatever the whims of the international community area.  He shows greater interest in currying favor with the United Nations than actually being leader of the free world; and his failure to lead or even hold ANYONE responsible for Benghazi should be grounds for impeachment whether he’s re-elected or not. ROMNEY WINS

Tax Policy – Romney understands that the only way to truly alleviate the tax burden on the middle class is not through further raising taxes on any groups, but rather increasing the number of revenue generating businesses who can hire more workers thus creating more tax payers and consumers which in turn fuel the growth of more revenue generating businesses.  By contrast, President Obama would have us believe we can tax ourselves into prosperity.  He would have us believe that ‘trickle down economics’ have never worked – which is yet another of his lies.  He would have us believe that Bill Clinton’s tax policies resulted in a balanced budget – conveniently overlooking the Republican controlled Congress that wouldn’t allow Bill to spend excessive amounts like Barack has already done.  He would also have us believe that a family with a combined income of $250,000 is the same thing as a millionaire.  Our economy has started to rebound not because of Obama’s economic policies, but in spite of them. ROMNEY WINS

Bi-Partisan Efforts – Everyone is sick of the bitter, deep partisan divide in our nation today.  While I am personally turned off by Romney’s wishy-washy RINO status, I’m also reminded of the old saying: “only Nixon could go to China”.  Maybe the Des Moines Register got it right when they cited Romney’s past of being able to work with Democrats in Massachusetts as proof he might finally be the guy to successfully reach across the aisle in DC.  By contrast, despite his grand statements about inclusion when he was first elected, President Obama made it clear you were either with him or against him from day one.  He was the one who drew the line in the side and he was the one who forced Republicans to either blindly support him (as Democrats did) or fulfill their duty as the minority party to challenge and question policies.  When they actually did their job, he isolated them and even used some of the slickest insider moves ever seen to shove through Obamacare so fast not even its supporters really understood what they were inflicting upon an unsuspecting nation.  President Obama is incapable of bipartisanship unless it is everyone agreeing with him. ROMNEY WINS

So, in the end I have two candidates that I don’t care for, neither of who gives me anything I like on the issues that matter most to me.  But I can find a handful of additional topics which I am able to find a reason to honestly say I can support one candidate over the other.  So on the eve of the election, I am finally able to list all the reasons I won’t be voting for Mitt Romney… and thankfully a few reasons that I will.

Dissecting Post Coverage of the VP Debate

On October 11, 2012, Vice President Joe Biden and US Representative Paul Ryan squared off in the one and only Vice Presidential debate. There is a lot of analysis of the debate itself going on... but I want to take a different approach. I'd like to actually exam the post-debate coverage and see what we can learn from that coverage itself.

 

When debate had ended, I flipped between 3 networks (intentionally avoiding FOX News) and was greeted by the same thing on each: journalists lauding Biden for his strong performance and for ‘taking command’ of the debate by not allowing Ryan to make points that might score with voters. They talked about how pleasant and reassuring his constant smiling was, and how it made him seem more personable. But the best was when one pundit referred to some of his ‘folksy’ comments and compared him to having appeal similar to Sarah Palin! (Seriously?)

 

And yet, the very next day the REAL results began coming in and – while neither can claim a knock-out punch – the notion that Biden ‘won’ or was seen as ‘in control of the debate’ seems to be unraveling rapidly as actual normal people weigh-in. The media is in a tail-spin trying to run interference for the Obama/Biden campaign, twisting themselves into pretzels attempting to explain away the results that are now being documented.

 

CNN Poll: Debate watchers split on who won VP debate

 

Nowhere is this better seen than in that bastion of journalist integrity – CNN. In this single article we learn a great deal:

1.      Poll results qualified as being taken from a Republican-leaning area (when is the last time you saw it reported when a poll was taken from a Democrat-leaning area?)

2.      Specific notation that the “poll does not and cannot reflect the views of all Americans” because it is only from those who watched the debate (again, when is the last time you saw that qualification being made / reported?)

3.      A poll in which “one-third of the respondents who participated in tonight's survey identified themselves as Republicans” (aka 33.3%), 34% Independents, and 31% Democrats is dismissed because it “indicates that the sample of debate watchers is more Republican than an average of recent CNN polls of all Americans.” (which confirms for us CNN polling generally is more Democrat-slanted)

To be fair, the sampling for CNN’s survey is only 381 people with a 5% margin error – making the results basically irrelevant. And yet look at how hard the media feels the need to explain them away!

 

Polls show Joe Biden is vice presidential debate winner (an intriguing headline on its own – since only 2 polls are covered and 1 of the polls actually says Ryan won)

 

But if you’re a Democrat, it’s okay; CNN assures us that this CBS News’ poll gave Biden the big win. However, when you look at the info on the CBS News poll, the survey population is only up to a whopping 431 people. But we are again assured, this time by CBS, that these results can be trusted because CBS also declared Romney the winner of the first debate “using the same basic methodology.”

 

We know that the fairly evenly split group that CNN talked to basically called the debate a tie. But the CBS News group not only gave Biden a commanding debate victory (13%); they pretty much ranked Biden higher in every single question asked following the debate. So let’s dig a bit into exactly who these “uncommitted voters” were in the CBS News poll.

 

Poll: Biden takes debate over Ryan, uncommitted voters say

 

VERBATIM FROM THE END OF THIS ARTICLE (my emphasis added):

 

The "uncommitted voters" who participated in this poll are either undecided or have chosen a candidate but say they could still change their minds. (If you've chosen a candidate, you are NOT "uncommitted", you've acted on your gut preference already.) They are less likely than voters overall to identify with either of the two major political parties: 58 percent call themselves independents (does this mean they are REGISTERED Independents or just consider themselves to be independent?), 17 percent identify as Republicans, and 25 percent say they are Democrats.

 

This CBS News poll was conducted online using GfK's web-enabled KnowledgePanel?, a probability-based panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The poll was conducted among a nationwide random sample of 431 uncommitted voters who have agreed to watch the debate.

 

Oh, BTW, this poll ALSO has a margin of error of 5% - making its results statistically invalid as well. As if 381 people or 431 people could possibly reflect the views of over 40 MILLION voting age Americans; and even if they could – do you really think on a national level there are 25% Democrats to only 17% Republicans… how is that “representative of the U.S. population?” And yet again, look how the media seems almost desperate to create a narrative in which Biden is the winner.

 

Joe Biden's smiling: Was there a method to his madness?

 

This analysis contains what may be my favorite of Biden's performance. It purports that not only were Biden's actions wrong... but that it was completely intentional, planned, and that he was coached to do exactly what he did for the sole purpose of benefiting President Obama:

 

So the challenge for Obama (in the 2nd debate) will be to carefully calibrate his next performance, correcting his previous mistakes without making it seem like he’s overcompensating.

 

And that’s where Biden’s incessant, aggressive smiling comes in. By taking his own animation level right through the roof, Biden may have given Obama a little more room to emote on Tuesday, without seeming like he’s overdoing it.

 

Because everyone just saw what overdoing it looks like – thanks to Biden.

 

So why, you may ask, would the media be working so hard to make Jokin’ Joe look so good? Actually, the gracious folks at CBS News provided that answer in the very last paragraph of their story above: “Finally, even a draw is probably a victory for the Obama campaign. The Romney/Ryan campaign came into the debate riding a wave of momentum from Romney’s victory in the first presidential debate. A tie in the vice presidential debate may effectively blunt that momentum, and allow President Obama to turn the tide in the next presidential debate.” (In other words, they admit that Biden really didn’t do as great as they want us to think… so they are trying to do their best to slow down Romney/Ryan to give Obama a chance to reclaim his mantle of superiority.)

 

Just watch – no matter how Obama performs in the 2nd debate, he’ll be the hands-down winner. In fact, the media pundits probably already have scripted what their responses (and the post-polling results) will be...