Sunday, November 11, 2012

The more things change, the more they stay the same

Part of a letter to a friend that was depressed about the election results:

...The country pretty much runs itself, though a president can have some impact (e.g., war).  The divided Congress is going to make it hard for anything to get done anyway.  I was disappointed a bit but not at all surprised by the results, and am mostly over it today (not crazy about the stock market today, though- ouch)  You asked why I don't like Romney.  I do like many things about him, such as his positions on health care, education, taxes, trade, immigration, Israel/Iran, and probably more if I thought about it, and I don't like some things, like his positions on defense, gun control, the environment, abortion, and parts of his energy policy (coal? really?).  I also wasn't crazy about his choice for vice president, a superficial ploy to win your home state and try to appease the very conservative wing of the party to solidify the base and get them out.  Ryan's economic plan was OK, but he's just way over the top on religion, and I don't trust religious fanatics.  On the other hand, Biden is pretty creepy and worse.  But really, VPs don't matter too much to me.  And while I was enthusiastic about Romney's emphasis on cutting the deficit, I was discouraged by his singular inability to articular where the 7 trillion was going to come from, as he seemed quite vague and naive about that.  Still, even though Romney was a mediocre governor, as memory serves, President Obama really didn't do anything in 4 years and there is no reason to think that the next 4 will be any different or think that he deserves another term.  So I voted for Romney (which was the kiss of death, as I've only voted for one winning presidential candidate ever), but wasn't excited about him.  But then, there haven't been too many candidates in my lifetime for whom I have been excited (the one's who win are the ones who are good at campaigning, which is an entirely different set of skills than those for doing the job).  As for his personality, he was a little slick, and the "self-made man" got tiresome for a guy with a rich father who was governor that opened a lot of doors for Mitt.  Also, he tried way too hard to appear to be a "regular guy" and just couldn't pull it off.  Not wearing a jacket and tie and rolling up the sleeves for the photo ops didn't look genuine; he reminded me of Dukakis pandering for the average guy vote.  Overall, though, he's OK as politicians go, and probably of better character than most.  I wish he won but it's not as depressing as the Patriots losing to the Giants in the Super Bowl or anything (yeah, I'm really deep)...

image from jobs.aol.com

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