politicaljunkie

The biggest issue, for me, would be government transparency and accountability. If we, as the voters, cannot trust our elected officials, democracy has failed. We need to rid ourselves of corrupt politicians.

I have seen corruption ruin my state's reputation and, with America's reputation already at risk, we cannot afford to sit and watch our country fall into the perils of corruption.

Global warming. The National Academy of Sciences, among other people, said that growing heat waves are a result of climate change. Crops are dying of thirst in the Midwest. 40% of the polar ice cap is gone.

And this is just the beginning. Sorry to sound so doom-dayish ... believe me, I'm sick of it.

The bottom line is that it's high time for politicians to be paying attention, and I think that some of them finally are, because more and more people are deeply concerned about this problem.

Immigration, i.e., illegal aliens, is top-of-mind. Enforce the borders, no amnesty. Be a nation of laws, enforced laws.

Also, the ballooning deficit and out-of-control spending.

Iraq.

Issues...You Want issues?

Karl rove told us last year what the election was going to be about. We're not going to be allowed to have a discussion about anything except naked FEAR.

There is nothing they won't do to win. It's going to be a sickening spectacle. I don't know if I have the stomach to stay around for it.

Issues...You Want issues?

In the past few years we have had:

01. Destructive foreign policy

02. Destructive environmental policy

03. Destructive attacks on our constitution and civil rights

04. Destructive congress that is controlled by lobbyists and big corporate money

05. A do-nothing congress that just sits back and lets it all happen.

So what is my biggest issue?

FIRING ALL Members of Congress (regardless of party) who sat by and did nothing. They do not represent what is in the public's best interests, so why should we continue their employment?

I hope this election is a HUGE wake-up call for our government. The American People are their bosses, not special interests and big corporate money. We want our country back.

To restore checks and balances. If Congress did any kind of oversight of the executive branch, we probably would not have gone into Iraq and be facing the chaos of the Middle East.

01. Leadership for a viable energy policy.

02. National health care policy for all Americans.

03. Leadership to reevaluate trade agreements that not only are destroying the American middle class, but are enslaving people of other countries, making corporations pay their fair share.

04. Leadership for campaign finance reform, get corporations out of the voting process.

05. The Iraqi (not a war any longer) occupation.

06. Incompetence in Congress & the executive.

People will want a President who does more than speak of "family values",religious faith and morality but demonstrates them by living them. People will want a person unlikely to be tempted by corporate greed and political corruption. Integrity will emerge as a necessary requirem

Placing the competency issue front and center is a no-brainer given the last six years of a President whose intelligence and competency were judged absent by many Americans.

Sadly, while the issues that will get the most press will be the inane ones that provide warm comfort to the President's conservative base, the real issue that seems to pervade most of the postings is lack of credibility in the standing government in general, and in the chief executive in particular.

Too many people feel they have been misled or manipulated too often and immediately view this through a cynical prism.

Leadership that has the respect of the populace must be a priority.

I mean, really, Karl Rove did come out and say this a year ago. They have no shame, they admit to manipulation. They have published numerous talking points, position papers and treatises that all discuss how to frame the issue, how to talk about it, how to constantly remind people of 9/11, how to push people's buttons, how to scare them. Do you think bush's photo op with the fireman and the bullhorn was spontaneous? Do you think anything they do is?

It's all calculated to do one thing--frighten you. And it has worked. The question is, are we smart enough to see through it? Or are we going to let our fear alllow us to be manipulated--again?

In B-school, they always said Fear was the most affective strategy next to sex.

I guess GWB actually was awake in one of his classes.

Fear works. Big time--you can track it. It directly affects the primitive lizard brain, the limbic system. It works on us unconciously, even when our higher, reasoning brain is not aware of it.

Every dictator, every tyrant, has used it effectively throughout history to maintain control of populations.

Karl Rove is a great student of Machiavelli and Goebbels. He speaks admiringly of them often when he talks privately to 'conservative' foundations and such. It isn't Bush. He just does what Rove and Cheney tell him to.

~ Washington Post

The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.

~ Peter Ustinov