How to assure that we elect a good president

We political bloggers like to write about the numerous complaints that are popular during a presidential election. They range from lamenting the poor choices we have for president to why the campaigns last so long. They are many and they are persistent; every year the same old complaints are heard again as if they were new, but they don’t ever seem to get resolved.

We love to criticize the political parties and the exorbitant amount of money it takes to conduct a national campaign. We all agree that politicians lie with abandon and seldom answer any question definitively. We’re concerned with voter fraud and especially don’t want illegal aliens voting. Some are satisfied with the Electoral College method of electing a president while others would prefer a popular vote tally. The list could go on and on.

But when you boil it all down, the major problem with our presidential elections can be found at the source; the voters themselves.

Results from a Rasmussen survey of likely voters in 2014 found that respondents thought that a large majority (83%) of American voters were woefully uninformed. You’ll note that the 83% figure must include many of those uninformed voters. I wonder, were they qualified (informed enough) to even answer the question intelligently?

In that same survey, 72% of the respondents thought that most members of Congress should not be reelected. That’s a pretty standard theme; the approval rating for Congress in Feb., 2016 was 11%. That’s pretty dismal. But it does beg the questions: who put them there and who keeps them there? There’s only one answer: the voters.

There are currently 16 members who have been in Congress for over 30 years. Why weren’t they put out to pasture before? If we’re so displeased with Congress, shouldn’t we start by replacing the members with the most influence and control – the ones most responsible for our displeasure?

The “newbies” in Congress have little to no power and, for the most part, do as they’re told. The committee chairpersons and ranking members control the legislation and thus, the laws. Why won’t the voters vote them out?

I have a simple answer to that question: the voters are dumb-asses.

Most voters, even the uninformed ones, believe that our right to vote is sacred and would raise holy hell if someone tried to take it away. But we have two problems with our presidential elections, 1) not everyone votes (in 2012, only about 57.5% of eligible voters cast ballots), and 2) the majority of the voters who did vote were uninformed about the candidate’s qualifications (or lack thereof) and voted solely on name recognition or party affiliation.

OK, now that we’ve established that the leader of the free world, on whose shoulders rest the well-being of 323,616,776 (U.S. Census population clock) residents of the United States, is chosen (in great measure) by voters who are woefully uninformed about him or her.

Is it too much to ask that voters exhibit at least the same seriousness about choosing our country’s CEO and Commander-in-Chief, as they do in deciding where to have lunch today?

For us political junkies, it boggles the mind that millions of voters simply don’t care enough to investigate which candidate is most likely to represent their interests. It’d be easy to say that they’ll get what they deserve, but the problem is we all end up getting what they deserve – and that’s just not right.

So, what’s the solution?

It’s simple. Just let us, the purveyors of truth and wisdom at Pesky Truth, choose our next president.

We have Kathy, CW, The Crawfish, curtmilr, AfterShock, tannngl, and I to rely on.

Could we do any worse? Worse than Barack Obama?

I think not. And how about the two major party candidates that we’ll have to choose from this year, are they appreciably better?

Just think that if WE had selected a president in 2008 and again in 2012, the nation would not have been subjected to unconstitutional governance, we would not have had illegal immigration running amok, our national debt wouldn’t be $19 TRILLION dollars today, Hillary wouldn’t have been Secretary of State, Benghazi wouldn’t have happened – and the list can go on for pages.

We, your simple political servants, take choosing our president VERY seriously. We dig, we research, we investigate, and then we “munge” (H/T to Mrs. AL), until we coalesce around the individual who would properly manage our country’s affairs, economically and internationally. A person who will tell the truth to the American public (fancy that!), giving us accurate assessments of the pros and cons of issues and the reasons for making decisions. We’d KNOW why things are as they are.

So, to sum it up, just write in “Pesky Truth” as your choice for president and relax, confident in the knowledge that we couldn’t possibly do any worse than our disinterested citizen population has done in the last few elections – and is on course to do as poorly once again – in November.

Garnet92.

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Categories: Political

Tags: 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION