Loo.me

This election is nasty. I don’t really like the message coming out of both camps.  But, i see their respective points.  Here’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to list what i like and don’t like about each candidate.

Romney: Pros

• Wants to shrink government in many ways. Less regulation, less agencies, less spending all over the place. I love this. I totally agree.  Our government is way too large and does way too many things.  We should push lots of it back to the states if possible and just stop it in other places.
• Wants to reduce the deficit and get back to being fiscal conservative.

Romney: Cons

• Women. Abortion and birth control.  I feel that women should have access to both and I don’t like any candidate who shoots to make abortion illegal, who wants to elect Supreme Court justices who are against it, or one who feels like birth control is a bad thing in America.  This is just so far away from my way of thinking.
• Wars. I want to be involved in as few wars as possible.  If i was a politician, i’d propose a strategy called “not my problem” and do everything i can to support the UN but would do almost nothing independently.  I’d do everything i can to not start new engagements.  Romney’s plan is basically the opposite of this.  He wants the US to re-assert themselves. He wants to increase government spending in defense.  I prefer we decrease it.
• Heath Care.  Obamacare is a massive piece of legislation. It has lots of rules and has govenment telling a lot of people what to do.  I don’t necessarily like that.  However, every single person i’ve talked to who works in health care says that without Obamacare, we’re in a much bigger mess.  Prior to Obamacare, we were footing the bill for any non-insured person to get treatment in ER’s.  Is Obamacare perfect? No. Is there a better alternative on the table?  No. Is repealing Obamacare a good thing? Not from where i sit.  Romney seems against it because (a) it was proposed by the opposing party; (b) he’d prefer, in a perfect world, it was done by states.  So, he’s little the perfect be the enemy of the good.
• Social Welfare. We have a lot of poor people in our country and i don’t think we can just ignore them and tell them to get jobs and do better. It’s our responsibility as a nation to handle their plight in a decent way. I’m not exactly what that is, but I’m pretty sure that Romney will do nothing to make their lives better except try to help the country as a whole and hope that the country then will solve this problem for him. His lack of empathy (see his 47% video) really doesn’t want me to have this man as our next President.

Obama Pros

• Foreign Policy. I like how he’s bringing troops home. I like how he got Bin Laden. I like in general how he’s representing America to other countries.  He’s not arrogant and is respectful.
• Personality.  I have to admit, i think he’s a pretty cool dude. This shouldn’t matter, but i just want to state it.  He seems quite relatable. He’s into sports, pop culture and seems to understand the world that I live in.
• Energy policy. I like that he’s so in to new energy. I’m into it too.  On the flip side, I actually wish he’d stop with the loans to new energy companies, but I like that he’s not just handing cash and favors over to the oil companies.  They’re doing fine without our government’s help.
• Stabilizing the ship.  In 2008, we were in a shit sandwich (520k jobs being lost a month, 1.2 million in 4 months), now we’re not (growing 120k a month). I’m happy for that turnaround, and in general, i do feel like the economy is getting better and recovering. It’s not as fast as everyone would hope, but but, we’re not headed in the wrong direction.

Obama Cons

• Big Government. He seems fine to increase the size of the government. Government has increased dramatically under his term. His response on how he’s going to fix the economy is to hire more teachers. I like teachers, but that doesn’t seem like the right answer.  I want the government smaller and i think he’s moving us in the wrong direction.
• Deficit. National debt from 00′, ’04,’08, and ’11 is (in trillions): 0.5, 0.7, 1.0, and 1.4 (source).  That is just too much.  I think Obama believes that it’s ok to run a yearly deficit the size that it is. I’m okay with some national debt, but i’d like it to be smaller, i’d like a plan to pay down our debt, and i don’t want us ever running a yearly deficit. That i think is irresponsible. I believe that Obama says he wants to balance the budget and pay down debt because it’s popular to say, but I don’t actually think he’ll really do anything to bring it down.
• Change. I used to think that he’d bring more transparency and transformational ideas to government.  I thought he’d change how the President interacts with the public.  I have been disappointed. I still think he’s got the good ideas, but I don’t think he’s had the balls in the past to do them.  Maybe this could happen in a second term when he’s not worried about re-election, but i’ve been disappointed thus far.

As you can see, there aren’t that many pro’s for Omaba but there a lot of cons for Romney.  That’s pretty much where i stand.  Here’s how I’m leaning for the remaining few weeks until the election:

What Romney has to do to win my vote

Romney needs to make me actually believe that he’s not a dooche and won’t just say whatever he needs to say to get elected.  I honestly don’t believe anything coming out of his mouth. I’d like to want to vote for him so we can reduce the size government, but I have no idea where his loyalties lie. I have no reason to believe that it is with people we can trust and instead I feel that it’s with the 1% who will be happy to pad their coffers and let the rest of the country (99%) go to hell.

What Obama would have to do to lose my vote

He has to keep acting like he doesn’t care about the economy, the deficit or what’s going in America.  He’s giving those issues lip service, but i’m not hearing anything that makes me believe.  I hate that he answers most questions with “I want to hire teachers.”  Right now I haven’t heard one thing out of his mouth that makes me want to vote for him other than that he’s not Mitt Romney – which is a pretty good point.

PS: the world “Romney-con” and “Obama-con” are pretty fun to say. Just pointing that out.