Guest Editorial: Crucial Times Call For Sensible Thought
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Politics has interested me ever since I was young. Other than my dad and my grandfather, John F. Kennedy is the only other man I have truly looked up to. I have run for public office, unfortunately unsuccessfully. I have worked to help presidential campaigns as a volunteer and I even stood on a rainy street corner as teenager to help campaign for my friend's dad for county commissioner.
This presidential election has gained my interest more than any I can remember. We are at a very crucial time in this country. Americans are losing their homes and cars at an alarming rate. We are paying prices for fuel that affect us so much it plays into our everyday decisions on how much we can spend on food and medicine or how much we can buy our kids for school for fear we can't heat our homes for the winter (if we still have those homes).
Our education system is in disarray and schools are underperforming all over the U.S. Health care is no longer about helping our sick but rather about privatizing hospitals so that corporations can make more money. Insurance claims are being denied and men, women and children in large cities and small towns alike are without health care.
 Gov. Sarah Palin |
Now it has become about Iraq and its links to terrorism and the Sept. 11 attacks. Again, has there been any concrete evidence those links exist? No. This was simply a job that dad couldn't finish so his son finished it for him.
Obviously, there are many more issues our country is facing. It would take days to cover them all. But let these serve as an example of how desperately you need to treat this election as the most important of your life and your children's lives and their children's lives.
The last eight years under George W. Bush have been about George W. Bush, not about America. John McCain is cut from the same cloth with the same ideals and ideas. His record overwhelmingly shows his dedication to Bush politics as he has voted WITH Bush almost 95 percent of the time. McCain talks about his rival Barack Obama and tells us that Obama is the most underqualified presidential candidate in our nation's history.
While that may be true, McCain then announces his vice presidential candidate as Sarah Palin. Who? Sarah Palin. Say it with me — Sarah Palin.
An obvious attempt to capture the voters who supported Hillary Rodham Clinton but who have not decided whether to support Obama, this ploy cannot help but backfire. If you are a Clinton supporter, your face should be stinging right now from the slap you just got.
I have nothing against "hockey moms," or women in general for that matter, but this is ridiculous. This governor from Alaska is potentially a heartbeat away from being the president of our country. Nothing against Alaska either, but talk about underqualified to be president.
If you are a Republican, how can you honestly say that this choice helps your ticket? I watched her acceptance speech tonight and it was all about being a mom and coming from a small town and blah blah blah. None of it offered any solutions to the problems facing this country. And can you guess why? It's because McCain and Palin don't have any plans.
Their ticket will offer four more years of the last eight years, as Senator Clinton so brilliantly put it. The things that are wrong with this country happened because of their party's gross misguidance. Can we really afford to have her at the helm of the most powerful office in the world? Honestly, can we? That could happen.
Barack Obama is the right choice in this election to take us out of this hole we got thrown into. He has concrete plans for universal health care for all Americans. He has a timeline to respectfully get our soldiers out of Iraq and put our military efforts into finding Osama Bin Laden and routing out the terror cells in Afghanistan. He has given his plan to restore the U.S. credentials throughout the world through diplomacy before force and save the lives of our men and women in uniform. His plans for alternative fuel sources will create thousands of green-collar jobs, drive fuel prices down and help save our planet. Along with the guidance of Senator Clinton in some capacity, our education system will return to helping our students rather than keeping them in the dark. Isn't that what we want? Isn't that what we need? Isn't that America?
Vote Obama and let's be the America we used to be.
Brian Flagg is the president and co-chairman of the Fall Foliage Charity Bed Race. He was co-host of "The Sports Page" on local public access stations for nearly five years. The North Adams resident has been coaching girls' basketball and softball for 16 years.
