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As the Presidential Primaries start to wind down, and it becomes increasingly obvious that we will know who the nominees for both parties are, one has to ask themselves if they like what they are hearing from any of the candidates.
From my perspective of the race, it feels like I have to do more searching for information where the candidates stand on issues that interest me. I don't recall an election where it was this difficult to determine where a candidate stands on the different issues. Right now, Barak Obama has the country electrified. He is bringing new voters to the polls and he is bringing that one group to the polls who have felt out-of-touch and disenfranchised from the political process and what goes on in Washington. Obama's message has been "change" and this group he is reaching is what I said a long time ago, the majority. It just happened four years sooner than I predicted. The simple fact of politics is the fact that the Republican and Democratic parties have moved towards extremism and candidates have been far too willing to follow the party right to the edge. The Democrats have Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi to hold up as poster children for the party and the Republicans have people like - God Rest His Soul - Jerry Falwell to show as an example of what the Republican Party is (By the way, the UAW has recently had Ted Kennedy to speak at a function - this is something you strikers might want to think about). Extreme stuff. But the front runners in the primaries seem to be gentlemen who have preferred to run closer to the middle than get caught up in extremism party politics. This is a first and quite a departure from how Presidential campaigns were run in the past. In the past, a candidate would embrace whatever party they belonged to and hung to the platform their party ran on. Then, when they ran for re-election, their ideas and platforms were aimed more at the center. Most people do not remember, or refuse to believe, that President Clinton turned very moderate on his stance of many issues in his second term. But, both the Obama and McCain messages have been towards a central group of people............. people who are disgusted with the way this country has been run and don't particularly care for either party. And while this is a welcome change, we must be careful to listen carefully for a clear message
from the candidates about the issues. For example, on Iraq, Obama's message has been one of he "got it right the first time" (when he voted against Iraq measures) and he believes we must state a date we will leave Iraq. McCain says we will be there for years to come. Neither is presenting much of a detailed message that bears an answer to the conflict in the eyes of the mainstream voter. Obama did NOT get it right the first time as he claims - based on the information provided by the intelligence community, we had no other options but to give the President the powers. Obama needs to remember that it was Bush's failed intelligence and not Hillary's vote that put us in Iraq. He also needs to understand that you do not negotiate with terrorists and you do not give them your battle plan - his thoughts about naming a date to leave Iraq is dangerous. As for McCain, he seems to think everything is ok in Iraq. Someone needs to tell this guy that 71% of the public doesn't go along with him - me included. But when we hear both of them say "change", we assume it is the kind of "change" we will applaud...........but many have no idea what "change" means in details when it comes to these two candidates.
The majority of us want change and we want it right now. We want affordable health care and for everyone to have the same access to the best health care available. We want out of Iraq but realize getting out of there and not causing a destablizing effect in the Middle East will be tricky. And the majority of us simply want to send a Texan back to Texas for good. This is too great a country and it is too wealthy a country not to get real change out of the next President. Let's just make sure that the next man, or woman, who moves into the Oval Office will have a real plan for change and not some rah-rah speech.
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Just My Opinion 
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