It has come down to three men and one woman in the bid to become the next president of the United States. They will duke it out in a no-holds-barred, over-the-top rope battle, and the winner will become the next president.
Sounds like a promotional ad for WrestleMania, doesn’t it? The election is a spectacle at best, no different from The Super Bowl or pay-per-view boxing. This was supposed to be one of the most important elections in recent memory due to the high stakes, but instead we have four sub par candidates to choose from.
After eight years of the Bush regime’s war on the Middle East and the middle class, this was supposed to be the year the Democrats stepped up. Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards would have been the (better) logical choices, but instead the party is going for style over substance. The notion of having the first woman or the first man of color as president has been marketed and pushed to the forefront, hoping to beat either Mike Huckabee or John McCain – who both bring nothing new to the table for the Republicans.
Let’s call it how it is: if Hillary Clinton is elected she would be "Bush-lite". Her healthcare plan is a joke. This is the same Clinton who used to advocate improving our healthcare until she was bought out and paid off by health maintenance organizations.
Barack Obama; while young, charismatic and hip, is not the solution. It is easy to be blinded by the glitter and glitz of his campaign, but make no mistake about it; Obama lacks the experience and the answers needed. Is he the lesser of two evils? Of course, but why should we have to settle for the best of the worst?
How about giving an independent voice an actual, fair shot? Would it be too much to give Ron Paul or Ralph Nader a crack at the White House?
Alternative viewpoints that are against the grain of the mainstream way of thinking are immediately vilified and dismissed as oddities. Why is the status quo the only available option? The mainstream opinions are popular for the same reason pop music is. The appeal is to the masses, watered and dumbed down for a public that is barely listening or even caring to listen in the first place.
The news should be a place to get the necessary information about the candidates, for citizens to be able to collect data and make a judgment on who they would like to vote for. Instead, we have talking heads talking about everything except the actual issues. Voters should not have to do all of the independent research about the candidates- it should be presented on their television screens or in the newspapers. It is no wonder that people can’t make educated decisions on the election – they are distracted by the constant fluff pieces and hype emanating from the media and their television screens.
