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Can either candidate get us out of this mess?
Randy Blaser
Updated: October 31, 2012 5:00PM
As we gear up for Election Day, it seems we are on the brink of a great crisis, say, something such as the Civil War and the election is between Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce.
Both are ineffective, offering no way forward to avoid the coming catastrophe.
Over the past four years, President Barack Obama has shown he is in way over his head. Unprepared for the presidency and unwilling to admit it was the message of his first debate performance in Denver.
Obama’s approach to the presidency has been as the smart kid who is too cool to do his homework or, maybe, as the talented athlete who doesn’t need to practice. Between the flashes of brilliance, we get mostly disappointment.
Mitt Romney, the challenger, is the confident CEO who has attended one too many self-affirming, think-positive seminars. Be positive, be confident, work the plan and the results you desire will come to you.
But does his desire to be president match the desires of the nation he seeks to lead?
We want peace and prosperity. But is that possible in the second decade of the 21st century?
The outbreak of violence in the Middle East aimed at our embassies hardly indicates that peace is at hand. And I would like us out of Afghanistan yesterday.
Prosperity, a promise still unfulfilled for the poorest of Americans, is quietly becoming just a memory for more and more Americans.
Four more years of the same will make the post-World War II boom seem like a historical footnote, a time unparalleled in human history never to be seen again.
More Americans enjoying the greatest standard of living ever seems destined to be replaced by more Americans in debt, more Americans unable to afford college without going into debt, and more Americans unable to land those good-paying jobs necessary to get out of debt.
More Americans obtaining the American dream of owning a home is being replaced by more Americans losing their homes to foreclosure. And everyone has lost the equity they hoped would grant an easier retirement.
And how are we going to pay for the mountain of debt that is government spending on a local, state and national level, most of which is payments to individuals, either as welfare, food stamps, social security, or other government funded retirement programs?
Election Day will come. And so, I fear, will the crisis. Neither candidate seems capable of handling it.
Maybe next time.
