Presidential Election Day 2008 In My Dream

My parents brought me up to always do my civic duty. Every election day since I was eligible, I have requested a ballot and cast a vote. Usually I make up my mind on a candidate selection long before Election Day.

However, this year is different. I have watched both conventions and each of the primary campaigns. I have heard all the speeches and know all the candidates personal biographies and issue platforms. The fact is that I still don't honestly know who I will vote for on Election Day 2008.

The truth is that a lack of confidence in both major Presidential candidates was probably responsible for the dream I had last night about the 2008 Presidential election. In my dream, I was standing in the polling booth on Election Day with my small pencil in hand. I was looking down at a ballot that required a selection. Would my selection be for Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden, or the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin? I considered my options carefully and each candidates' qualifications one final time.

John McCain has a compelling personal story. He is a true American Patriot and an American hero. I believe he has a capable understanding of foreign policy, but worry about his apparent lack of understanding about the domestic economy. After the pick of Sarah Palin, he is now trying to become the new reform candidate. The truth is that the major reform legislation that McCain has authored in the recent past has been a disaster. Campaign finance reform and immigration reform to name just two.

Meanwhile Democratic candidate Barack Obama is very intelligent, a great speaker, talks about changing government and would bring to the White House a black American for the first time in history. However, I think his resume for the office of the President of the United States is pretty thin. He has never really managed anything in his life. In fact, he is asking America to vote for him based primarily on the experience of his Presidential election campaign.

I am also worried that if elected he would raise taxes and that he has no real experience in foreign policy or a real comprehension of how to handle the global economy. Senator Barack Obama has had time to write two books, but he has no record of any significant reform or achievement during his time in public office. In addition, he is the favorite candidate of the less- than- objective mainstream media. The entire Barack Obama Presidential package is intriguing, but does make me very nervous.

While both candidates are very careful about being too specific on any major issue, their intention is to avoid, at all costs, any political discussion on a few others. Barack Obama does not talk about the need for tort reform because it will offend his base of support from trial lawyers, while John McCain avoids any discussion of immigration reform which in the past has cost him support from his conservative voter base. Neither candidate seems to have formed an opinion on the dubious future consequences of spending billions of dollars of taxpayer money to bail out the sub prime mortgage problems of Bear Sterns, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

In light of the current sad state of the economy, neither major party candidate will tell you how they actually intend to pay for their long list of campaign promises. In addition, this has already been the most expensive presidential campaign in U.S. history and, as usual, much of that money is coming from corporate lobbyists.

As I continue to stare at that ballot, in my dream, I realize that I am looking for the candidate who has an agenda to actually change the American political system. I am not looking for a candidate who is running on "Change" slogans just to obtain political power for the next four years.

So, I took several minutes thinking about all of this in that voting booth in my dream. Then, I finally made the difficult choice, a choice that I would not want to discuss in any American civics classroom. I wrote the word “present” on my ballot due to an absence of straight talk so far in this 2008 election campaign.

Indeed, both candidates still have seven weeks until Election Day to try and convince me to change my mind, but as I awoke to the dawn of a new day, I realized that I would not change the vote that I made last night.

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