Monday, April 2, 2012

March Madness over; welcome to April!

Well, March was extremely successful! I did my 60 push-ups a day, which equated to 1860 push-ups! That combined with continued running equated to a very good month of physical exertion.

To my chagrin, I did read the front page of the WSJ or BBC News webpage every weekday. While I do feel more knowledgeable, I find that I easily parse the information I don't care to know about into a small area of my brain that is only accessible with three keys and a brick of C4. That is, unless, there is some trivia involved and then apparently it opens up like I'm about to feed food to a koi...you know those fish in ponds are never satisfied.

Last but not least, I did my top ten lists for four candidates. It's kind of a cheat because I didn't actually find ten reasons because I didn't want to get into the extreme details of each piece of legislation they have supported or fought against. So, without further ado...

- Mitt Romney:
1. He has five kids. This does not represent me, nor the norm in our country (despite reality shows to the contrary). Honestly...five kids. Sheesh.
2. He has three houses. Once again, this does not represent me. I guess he does need a place to store all the kids though.
3. His wealth is ridiculous. He could probably pay off our debt independently (or at least needing help from only one or two contributors). In all honesty though, he does appear to be able to manage money, which would be a good thing for us.
4. He's Mormon. It has to be said. The country just isn't ready for that. No matter how much everyone touts separation between church and state, people just aren't ready for that jump.
5. He supports women giving up their children if they aren't married. That's just crazy.
6. He went from being Pro-Choice to Pro-Life. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you can't change your view on that for one reason or another. I think it's important to know where you stand on that and if your views change you should make that known. But, to this country it will lead to an automatic label of "flip-flopping" without regard for the topic, so that is a slight against him.
7. He's opposed to same-sex marriage and civil unions. He changed his opinions on these too, but it's still going to hurt him given the traction that has been made of late.

- Rick Santorum:
1. This guy was a legit lawyer...as in practicing. That makes him questionable from the outset because he'll be very adept at working the system. I know and love lawyers, but he doesn't seem to be very knowledgeable in general so his ability to find loopholes more easily than a non-lawyer scares me.
2. He is also opposed to same-sex marriages and civil unions.
3. He's opposed to birth control. There have been lots of things about this in the media lately (or so I'm told...remember, I only started reading the news last month), but it just seems ridiculous to put that much responsibility on the women of the country. Telling them to just keep their legs closed really does put the responsibility of who can and cannot have sex onto the women.
4. He has changed his opinions on the theory of origin (evolutionary theory). Though I understand changing your views on abortion, this one seems to be a bit off for me.
5. He's too interested in our foreign occupation. I'm tired of it...let's focus on us for a change.
6. He really doesn't seem to understand all that he reads or supports. That is extremely worrisome.
7. He has a mixed record on fiscal matters. With a debt as big as we have, I would really prefer someone that can balance their check book regularly and consistently.
8. He has seven kids. That's two more than Mitt! Come on people...

- Newt Gingrich:
1. He's been married three times. And, oh yeah, cheated on the first two. That does not send a good message to the country, nor to the rest of the world. Cheating on a wife, though a personal matter, is still cheating. It involves lying, hiding, and emotional pain...those all translate to things in politics so he should definitely be worried about this.
2. He's had three religions! I guess that equates to about one per marriage, though they didn't directly correspond. Talk about flip-flopping. If he can go from Lutheran to Southern Baptist and then to Catholicism, what issues will you change your mind about related to politics?
3. He's only been moderately successful thus far. He's always been ALMOST there. That's probably not going to be good enough when you put him in a position he's not QUITE qualified for.
4. He needed his wife's help to balance their check book. I'm sorry, that is similar to Rick's issues. There are some qualifications I can ignore (military experience being the most obvious since no one really has that anymore) but I want someone solid in the monetary department.

- Barack Obama:
1. He used cocaine in high school. Seriously? Ok, I never used any illegal substance in college (up to now actually), but I do understand that a lot of high school and college students like to experiment with some drugs - pot being the most obvious. But cocaine? That's hard core. Now he says it was a great moral failure, but it's still something of note. Perhaps it will mean he'll be harder on drug use, but I'm skeptical.
2. Many media outlets say he's a great orator, but I disagree. If he knows the topic, or it's something he's passionate about, then yes he's good. But if it's a regular speech where someone else wrote it, you might as well have someone read from the prompter for him because they won't deliver it any less dynamically than he will.
3. Moderate success. For all the things he was elected for, he's only achieved a small amount of progress. We'll probably start seeing the prices at the pump go down soon just so we don't focus on that, but it'll only be a ploy to hide all the things he's yet to accomplish.

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