My Perennial Waste of Time With Political Debates: Obama Vs Clinton

The first ten responses that came from my mouth during the opening questions of the political debate between Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton were simply “so what?” It seems we’ve lost touch with what the point of an actual debate between candidates for the presidency should be about. Instead, we get what looks to me a gossip report you can find daily on the E! Channel. Americans need to stop asking themselves, “Which candidate do I relate to and understands me?” and start asking themselves “Which candidate is going to get the job done, the right way, and spare America as well as parts of the world this ongoing suffering.” This presidential candidate debate between Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton left me not only with nothing new to ponder, but also feeling as though America is incapable of moving forward in a progressive manner and ridding ourselves of the propaganda that has long plagued our country.

Allow me to remind people that the major issues at play for our world is not gun control, religion, soccer moms, bible thumpers, pro-lifers, pro-choicers, homosexuals, and terrorism. What is plaguing our country is the collapse of the infrastructure, our debt and now dependence on China, Americans losing jobs and not having the gas money to go out looking for new ones, the veterans pay that’s going to take place over the next forty years (or should I say 140 years if McCain has anything to say about it) when the war in Iraq finally ends, the social security of today’s senior citizens who paid good money to be taken care of in the future, the children and adults dying because of a lack in health care, the rising poverty rate of children in America, the staggering poverty rate of Africa, Bangladesh and Haiti among others, our decreasing food supply, global warming, fossil fuel dependency, racism (let’s not forget it still exists), the pitiful homophobia of our “glorious” major religions, and finally who’s the right president to turn these things around?

It baffles me that news media claims the people of America decide who they’re going to vote for by asking themselves, “Is this guy like me? Can I have a beer with this candidate? Do they understand who I am as an American?” If this is the case and the media is correct than why aren’t they pressing the real questions you should be asking yourselves (see the list of issues I listed above)? The fact that JFK won the vote partially because female voters liked his personality and thought he was cute is nothing JFK nor America should be proud of! Let me break something to you – these presidential candidates are NOTHING LIKE YOU! They don’t want to have a beer with you, and if they could they wouldn’t be spending all this money campaigning and talking to you. What they are here to do is run this country so me and you can sit back, buy things we don’t need, be oblivious to real issues (Heidi and Spencer versus Lauren Conrad doesn’t count), watch MTV and get drunk on the weekends. And hey, it worked for a long time and it’s still mildly working now accept for the fact that Americans are getting booted out of their ignorant plush lifestyles and facing reality.

So, what we do need is that candidate that will help rebuild America’s infrastructure and create opportunity to gain wealth for the middle, working, and poor classes of citizens. A candidate that will stop sending young Americans off to die, and attempt to repair our ruined reputation with the rest of the world. A candidate that’s willing to step up to corporations exploiting the poverty stricken nations with slavery wages and work to lessen our dependency on China. A candidate who realizes that not all people want to be like us and that democracy doesn’t work wherever you want it to. It doesn’t matter how much you believe in democracy and God; not everyone wants to be you! Get over yourself America!

Coming back to the debate let’s run through what was talked about. The debate began with discussion about Obama’s remarks regarding Pennsylvanians being “bitter” and “clinging to their Bibles and guns”. I simply ask the question: Where is the relevance? I personally don’t believe that Obama had to retract this statements and I can’t believe that it is still relevant to the presidential election. We are trying to pick a president here not a beauty queen pageant winner! They wasted a good eight minutes without bringing up a single solution to the problems facing many small town, rural Pennsylvanians which is job loss and increasing poverty. On top of that, you have reporters and analysts sitting in New York, DC, and LA stating that rural Pennsylvanians must be outraged when the closest they’ve ever gotten to a small town, rural American is passing them by on a road trip. If anything, these people must be agreeing with Obama that yes we are bitter, and all we’ve got are our bibles and guns now that the system has screwed us out of everything else! And for those who rely on bigotry, religion, and the farce accusations that the Democrats are going to take your gun away, can you please go and die off so we can evolve as a society?

Next, they brought up Obama’s former Pastor – yet another distraction to what’s really important! This man is not related to Obama, he’s not a member of Obama’s campaign team, and he’s not a prospective running mate of Obama either. So tell me, how does it matter to the presidential election? It’s already bad enough religion has as much influence as it does in politics and government, but for the media, McCain, and Hillary to keep coming back to these kinds of things of no importance is not only annoying but pathetic to think these our leaders and the main information distributors of our country. If one is to argue that Obama’s pastor is important allow me to lay this on you: When a priest of any random catholic church is caught molesting the choir boys in the confessional booth, does that make those members of that church child molesters? If Obama is an American hater because his reverend is portrayed to be, then we sure have a lot of child molesters running around free here in America.

The next “critical” topic that was brought up was Hillary’s “misuse of words” when she claimed to have been under sniper fire in Bosnia. Again, if the American media and people were more interested in what really matters in saving this country from collapse then she wouldn’t have to do what every politician does and that’s lie. Again, I look for relevance – it’s not there. I look for how this can further my understanding of the candidates and allow me to make a more informed decision and – it’s not there.

Needless to say, this debate was just another fruitless waste of airtime when ABC could’ve aired something America seems to have more interest in, like Deal or No Deal! It seems if you want to make a truly informed decision you can’t rely on the mass media, television stations, or the candidates themselves to spoon feed it to you. You simply have to dig deeper and read, yes America, read! I know it’s sounds crazy since we do live in the era of you tube and on demand cable, but reading about these candidates decisions while serving in the senate, seeing where their endorsements have gone in the past, and basically observing their actions and muting the bullsh%t coming from their mouths is the only way you will be able to make an informed, intelligent and satisfying decision in this years election. Let’s remember, we asked ourselves four years ago who’d we like to have a beer with and look how well that worked out.