As I have mentioned before, I think that lots of people go and vote and are rather uneducated on what the candidates stand for and how their decisions in the White House might impact their lives. However, this election does seem to be getting the attention of more Americans than in recent history. 38 and 39 million people watched Barack and John give their acceptance speeches at the conventions. 37 watched Sarah Palin give her speech. Those are the highest watched conventions in US history according to Fox News. So maybe my theory about voters being less educated on the issues is not as true for this election.
I try to stay educated on the candidates and their views on the topics that I care about. The two biggest things that matter to me in this election are energy policies and national security. National security in my view should always be at the very top of everyone’s list. In today’s day and age, it is imperative that our national security be strong. Russia, Iran, and North Korea are all serious issues that will likely have to be dealt with in the next 4-8 years and we need a president who can be strong and make the right decisions. We also in my view need to remain strong in Iraq until the job is done. Whether the war was a mistake or not doesn’t matter anymore. The fact is, we are there, many men and women have died there in service to their country, and we are obligated to honor their sacrifice and finish the job. Not to mention, losing in Iraq would be horrible for our military moral, our position across the world, and would likely fall into chaos if we leave prematurely.
Energy is also very important. It is unreasonable to think we are all of a sudden going to convert to some new fuel in the next few years. While we work on making practical advances in alternative fuels, we need to ensure our gas supply remains high. More drilling is a no brainer in my mind. I could go on and on about why the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, but I’ll save that for my paper.
Other things are important to me also, such as I think national run healthcare would be horrible, and taxes should remain low to help hopefully stimulate our dragging economy. Lots of things are important when choosing a president, but I think the topics above are the most important.
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3 comments:
Tommy,
I really like how informed you are on so many of the issues in this election. Events of the past few weeks have gotten me extremely excited about voting in November. I've followed the issues for months and am finally secure in my decision. It's good to see other people interested enough to really research the different issues before making their decision.
I really liked everything also that you losted as important. I have not really looked at those reasons and considered them. Honestly, after reading your blog I am going to start looking and researching them with the candidates. I love that you also threw in the stats of how many people have really ben paying attention to this presidential race. I feel like it has been getting a lot of attention.
Tommy,
I think that you touched on two of the most important arguments this election should be focused on. A lot of us talk about how wrong it is that the focus of this election is always on scandals but we don't do a lot about it in terms of researching important topics ourselves and getting into the true issues (at least I havn't so far. It's refreshing to read something solely about the political issues of this election.
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