When you look at a presidential candidate you are faced with the sobering fact that if elected they will be the most powerful person on earth for the next four years, having power over not only weapons of mass destruction, but the economy, foreign policy, social and civil rights issues and the quality of your life.
New candidates have to run on a limited record of public service, their character, their personality and believability. If the person is an incumbent, that person should stand on past achievements and the accomplishments or lack thereof in the last four years.
Being a good president requires much more than being a nice and charismatic guy, a good public speaker and looking good for the television cameras.
A president is supposed to be a leader, a pacesetter, a father figure, a pursuer of justice, a champion of the American way of life, defending it around the world verbally and militarily if necessary.
A good president is a good administrator who realizes that he can't possibly be everywhere at the same time, that he needs capable assistants to take care of the details and strong competent men and women who have the experience and ability to run departments of government, leaving him free to tackle the big problems and oversee the work the people under him are doing.
The president represents the face of America to the rest of the world and every word that comes out of his mouth is diced, dissected and analyzed by foreign leaders around the world and have to be carefully chosen so as not to show weakness or vulnerability.
A president can’t be a crybaby or petulant or petty and should, above all, take responsibility for his actions good or bad. Harry Truman said it best, "The buck stops here".
When we examine the question which is the most essential in deciding whether or not to elect an incumbent it should not be just, am I better off than I was four years ago, but, is the country better off than it was four years ago.
I do not openly support political candidates and admit that I don't know as much about Mitt Romney as I intend to learn in the next few months, but from what I've seen so far he seems to be a capable administrator who has had extensive experience in running government and business.
He seems to me to be moral and honest and anybody who has risen as high in politics and business simply has to be a good administrator, capable of surrounding himself with the best, the brightest and the most motivated and delegating authority to the most capable ones.
Let's look at Barack Obama's four years in office.
One of the first things Obama did was to tour the world, apologizing for America's greatness and bowed to a Muslim king who is one of the worst human rights violators on earth.
The prestige of this nation has fallen ever since.
Do you feel better about America's place in the world than you did four years ago?
He surrounds himself with incompetence and inexperience. Eric Holder alone is enough of a testament to Obama's weakness when it comes to appointing capable personel.
Holder's tenure has been an unmitigated and unparalleled disaster. In the hands of Holder, justice is not blind and certainly not colorblind.
His refusal to turn over pertinent documents pertaining to the Fast and Furious debacle, in my opinion, means that he's got something to hide. There is no way possible that a gun running operation that crosses international borders could possibly have happened without the approval of the head of the department, if not approval at an even higher level.
Holder is not Attorney General material. The man seems to think the constitution is a list of suggestions. He is dangerous.
Do you feel better about the Justice Department than you did four years ago?
Tim Geithner's understanding of the street level economics is either non-existent or well hidden. He looks and acts like a lost child.
Do you feel better about the treasury department than you did four years ago?
Have you flown lately? If you have, you probably got a taste of Janet Napolitano's style of Homeland Security, it seems that the TSA just goes from one blunder to another and there's simply no telling how many terrorists have crossed our border with Mexico unimpeded.
Do you feel safer now than you did four years ago?
Obama has had more Czars that the entire history of the Russian Monarchy and in most cases we don't even know what they do.
Obama has shown his contempt for the constitution on several occasions. He has also shown his contempt for the will of the people with his sneaky midnight legislation and further corrupting of the already corrupt houses of Congress to get his socialist agenda passed over the will and behind the back of We The People.
Do you feel that your government represents your interests better than it did four years ago?
His whispered conversation with Russian President, Medvedev when he thought the mics were off, not only bespeaks what a second Obama term would be and his tell Vladimir “after my election I’ll have more flexibility”is a harbinger of some dealings with the Russians he wants to hide from the American voting public.
His secretly recorded, "guns and religion”statement seems to pretty much sum up how he feels and talks about Middle America when he thinks they can't hear him.
Do you trust the president more than you did four years ago?
A net two million jobs have disappeared under Obama, the national debt has grown to sixteen trillion dollars and getting bigger every day,
Do you feel better about the economy than you did four years ago?
Obama has been the most socially divisive president in my lifetime. He fans the flames of racial and class envy any time he thinks it will benefit him politically.
Do you feel better about race relations than you did four years ago?
Obama talks about all the jobs he saved by bailing out General Motors, but many of those jobs are overseas and don't benefit the American economy or tax base at all.
His chosen head of the White House’s “Jobs Council”, Jeffrey Immelt - the head man at General Electric - moved the manufacturing of GE light bulbs to China.
Do you feel better about keeping your job than you did four years ago?
And how about Tom Vilsack's Agriculture Department wanting to tell farm families what age their children could operate machinery. Mr. Vilsack is evidently out of his depths and knows very little about the family farm.
Do you feel better about raising your family without government interference than you did four years ago?
Kathleen Sibelius should be called the secretary of health, welfare and abortion because she has at least as much interest in terminating the unborn as she does health and welfare.
Is the country better off than it was four years ago?
Does Obama deserve another four years based on his performance?
Would Mitt Romney move America in a better direction if he was elected?
That's the question we will all be a part of answering in November.
I pray the best man wins.
What do you think?
Pray for our troops, and for our country.
God Bless America
Charlie Daniels
