Presidential Elections

You can see from this week's poll that I'm interested in your opinions about the current presidential election. Many of you have posted your informed opinions on your own blogs. See this one for a good analysis/prediction and this one to learn which candidate has the stink of crazy about him. (Don't I have intelligent, witty friends?)

I have a fabulous friend (who wishes to remain anonymous) who actually lives in Michigan and therefore got to vote today. She sent me a wonderfully fun and informative email about her agony in making the decision. I asked her if I could post it as a guest commentary. She said... YES! Yippee! So, without further adieu, here it is (it is a bit long but worth the read):

I have been watching with interest and feeling like I'm a sponge soaking up everything I can about this race. So today I'm going out to vote and of course will be taking my pre-schooler with me who will no doubt talk to every voter he can whether they pay attention or not. I'm sure I will hear "you are a good boy for voting today" and he will likely be passing out something to everyone. In the past he has handed out things like imaginary light bulbs to everyone at the grocery store, yesterday it was imaginary breakfast to everyone walking in/out or at the preschool/methodist church.

Because Michigan decided to push up the primary earlier than in the past and go against the constitution or whatever the hoopla is all about, Obama and Edwards did not enter the race or pulled themselves from the race here. Of course Hilary has not done so and probably hopes to get the token votes because of ballot confusion that will no doubt be all over the news tomorrow. The campaign if anything is that Obama and Edwards supporters want democrats to vote undecided to send a note that we will take anything but Hilary. It is tempting to send my vote that direction.

On the other hand we have the Republican race which is pretty much a dead heat race between McCain and Romney. Now Romney who is a "Michigan boy"and whose dad was in politics in Michigan and Mr Business has a personal connection here. Huckabee is still hanging in there and will likely come in 3rd but I doubt will be a contender for 1st or 2nd. Guiliani who I once admired a few years ago really fell off my radar the day I saw him speaking to a group of people and taking a cell phone call from his wife during the speech and making what he thought was a funny. It totally turned me off and I thought what a goof ball. I have issues with people and their cell phones and whether it was planned or impromptu it just annoyed me greatly and I will never forget it. SO we are back to the Romney, McCain and Huckabee race. The rest of the guys are just nowhere near the mark on the radar so I won't bother.

Huckabee - so I have had his book sitting next to my bed, about digging your grave with a fork and knife, since before he threw his hat into the race. He wrote an inspiring book, has a great story to share about his weight loss efforts and life. Although I know some really great people who live in Arkansas I have had this issue of "can anything good come from Arkansas"? But when I saw him jamming on his guitar on TV at some rally I thought goodness. I like when someone can have fun - that is very important. But honestly do we need some right wing minister to go pick up his guitar and sing ditty for some foreign diplomat? :) I like the guy, have nothing against him because of his beliefs, I just don't think he is the guy who needs to be in the Oval Office.

McCain - so here is a sad one. I have never really been aligned with him for some reason. Every time I look at him I see the face of this guy I used to work with in Illinois. I will not give the name to protect the innocent so we will just call him "HOMER". So Homer is a big gun guy, used to keep a gun in his office, in his work vehicle all against company policy. So how on earth do I get from Homer to McCain? I'm honestly not sure but I cannot get beyond the fact that every time I see or start to hear McCain speak all I can think of is HOMER!

Romney - OK so now you must be thinking that of course I must then be a Romney fan. Well, I'm not so sure. I think he has some great experience and I think he is surely capable of handling the oval office. I would also hope that his morals would create less interest from the walls of the oval office in the activities conducted within. :) But I'm running into a few problems here as well. My spouse will not let go of the fact that he has flip flopped on the abortion issue over the past many years to please the crowd at hand. I think you could probably find some similar issues if you looked long enough for almost every politician. I'm not excusing it and its still a bit of an issue but its not my biggest problem. He seems well suited to keep the status quo. Not sure that is what we need. I voted for Bush and I like him but we really do need some change. I hesitate using the word "change" since it is such a buzz word in the race. I also can't help but think of a situation when my Dad was asked to head a department at the church where my brother was in that department. He had to go out of his way to ensure no one thought he was playing favoritism. How does this relate to Romney? I honestly see the press waiting like vultures to find anything where he appears to make any decisions that align themselves with the general population of the church and making it look like he is just making those choices because of what some will view as direction from his leaders. It is sad but honestly the uneducated about our beliefs and structure just don't get it and wouldn't understand that there really is no connection other then his own convictions. I don't know if that makes sense. But the other problem is he is such a SUIT. I had a boss in Utah who I called "the suit". It's kind of like my HOMER association.I see Romney and I see my old boss - The Suit. It is not a good association.

All that said, I'm heading out in just a few minutes and will be casting my vote for Romney. But had Obama and Edwards been on the ballot I may have cast my vote for Obama instead. I was in Illinois when he emerged out of nowhere in a race that was really a mess. I can picture him negotiating things internationally in a very positive way. I worry about his lack of experience. But for some reason I lean back to him after all is said and done because he seems more likely to bring two differing opinions together rather than making things black and white. Not sure that makes sense but that is my very LONG rambling message that I just had to share. :)