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Health & Fitness

Let the Games... End!

The game of politics we can no longer afford to play.

With the Olympics behind us, and the political conventions on the horizon, get ready for presidential election overload. From now until Nov. 6, we will be bombarded with negative ads, debates, listen to poll number fluctuate, hear the pundits spew their opinions and see which side wins. It is like the Olympics of politics, but without the class, talent, guts and great inspirational stories.   

When I watch the Sunday morning news shows from “Meet The Press” to “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” it always strikes me as odd that no matter what the facts are, each side has the opposite spin on it. If unemployment numbers are up, the Democrats spin it as a positive (what?) and the Republicans spin it as a negative (of course). We are talking about facts, not ideas, and yet each side claims it indicates something entirely different. It has got to be one or the other. It is of course the game of politics, but it is a game we can no longer afford to play. We must take back our power as voters. We are the ones that get to decide, and we are the ones that should demand they do it differently this time around. If they want to play political games then why don’t we become the referees. The ones that make up the rules that they have to play by. We, with our votes, get to cry foul or fair.

The new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), better known as Obamacare, can be discussed amongst four smart, well educated experts, and yet there will be four totally different interpretations of it. How is that possible if it is a law that has been written, read and passed? The same is true of Paul Ryan’s budget plan on Medicare. They claim their plan will help seniors and will not change Medicare as we know it, but that it will help preserve it. The Democrats say it will do exactly the opposite. The truth has to be somewhere, but where?  Most of us have not read the PPACA, by the way neither have most of the Congress members that passed it, so who do we believe? Who is right and who is wrong? How do we vote if we are in the dark and uninformed on these very important issues? We can’t trust the men running for office to be forthright about the pros and cons of their plans, we’ll just hear about the pros and we know there are cons in everything. We just need to know which plan has the pros that outweigh the cons. We just want the truth.  

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Traditionally, debates only let us hear the rhetoric of the politicians that have everything to gain by telling us what they think we want to hear. What if employ instead, an impartial person that would take an hour and explain the accurate and truthful pros and cons of both plans by Obama, and Romney. The people will lose out if we continue to let these politicians run the campaign the way they always have. They are driven by their poll numbers and demographics. It is a game for them and the prize is the presidency, and the losers could be the American public.  It seems the winner will be the one that scares us the most about the opponent. I want to know what I’m voting for, tell me in full sentences not just sound bites and back biting.

This election is too important to spend talking about Bain Capital or Joe Biden’s gaffes. I don’t care if they lean to the right or left. There are just a few things we should demand of the new or same president. The winner needs to create jobs.  We create jobs by producing things here and by not outsourcing them. We need Americans to buy American goods. Therefore we need to raise our bar to create better goods than anyone else. Whoever is going to be president must be able to lead and inspire Americans. We need a leader who can get us to step up our game, and be the best again. I’m not a politician. I don’t know what the answers are. I’m also not running for president. I want them to know what the answers are. I want them to stay on point. I want them to be smart and strong. I could not care less if they smoked pot in college, believe in birth control, if they are black, white, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or Mormon. I only care that they can lead. They have to have the courage of their convictions and be willing to do what is right over what is popular. Please don’t waste time - our time - with ads that the media ends up dissecting and analyzing for days. Please don’t distract us from the truth. We need to expect more, and accept less, than we have in the past. This is an important game, the future of our country and the future of our children are on the playing field.

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