Blog Editorial: Swing Votes

On the political blog Red State, the post ‘Why I Think Obama is Toast”; highlights many key points to winning and election. Being a conservative blog the people reading this are probably conservatives or interested independents. As a conservative myself, I saw the title of this blog and was interested in why this person feels this way. Independents being a key component in this post. Independents seem to make a big difference in elections. Independents living in swing states are in an extremely powerful position. They are generally the ones that make the difference in elections. There are elections where the independent vote did not choose a president but in that case there must be a large majority of Republican or Democrat votes. His claim that Obama will lose the upcoming election and Mitt Romney will be the next president of the United States is back by a lot of sources. He cites the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, National Review, Mitt Romney, Monmouth University, Public Policy Polling, American Research Group, TIME, CBS News, among others to support his opinions. With the current economic times, Independent voters are unlikely to vote in an incumbent. Republicans turned out in waves for the 2010 midterm elections and are expected to do the same for this November’s elections. The current exit polls for early voting are showing a republican majority. If Obama cannot secure the Independent votes, it is crucial for him to win national popular vote. This election season has been extremely competitive. The debates were fiery and aggressive. I agree with the author because after watching the debates and observing over the past four years with the economic down turn and the sky high unemployment, it seems extremely unlikely for independents or undecided voters to choose the incumbent. Having watched the debates and interacted more in this election than years past, makes me want to vote in this election. It has been neck and neck up until the end. Maybe Obama can pull away with a national popular vote or maybe Romney will come in with a landslide of republican and independent votes. Only the looming elections will tell. 

Gun Critique: Less or More?

The New York Times editorial ‘The Issue That Goes Ignored,’ brings up the issue that has been put on the back burner by both political candidates in hopes of not losing any voters before November’s elections.  Gun control is a touchy subject in many states. Many southern states are anti any kind of gun control laws, where as northern states are generally more in favor for stronger gun control laws. The author of the editorial leans more toward the need for more gun control than less. The audience most likely to agree with the opinions of the author would be more liberal Americans than republican. The general republican opinion is vigorous protection of the 2^nd amendment right to bear arms. With the mindset of protection and being able to protect what is your own, stricter gun control laws would not sit well. Generally liberal Americans are less in favor of guns and would rather see guns off the streets and out of the hands of most citizens. The author points out the fact that even though Obama pledged to “fight for [the] renewal of the ban on assault weapons’ his administration hasn’t made it a priority. With the many shootings and bomb threats in the last year; one would think that this would be a hot topic but it hasn’t had much time in the spotlight during this election season. The author is not named but the editor of the article Andrew Rosenthal is editor of the paper’s opinion pages (both in the newspaper and online), and oversees the editorial board. He also worked at Associated Press as Moscow bureau chief. His experience in editorial and opinion writing is strong. The author takes the stance of more gun control, safer America. He supports the renewal of the ban on assault weapons, and is against the ‘stand your ground’ laws. With deaths by guns sky high in American I can see why so many people support more gun control laws. I agree with the ban on assault weapons. If you are not military trained personnel, you have no reason to need an assault weapon. Those should be kept to war time and military use only. On the other hand, guns make many people feel safer. Many states have laws giving people the right to shoot trespassers or if they feel threatened. It gives people comfort knowing they have a way to defend themselves if necessary. Some gun control is necessary but going too far in the other direction could have negative side effects. 

Attacks in Libya and the Economy

In the Fox News article Fox News Poll: 53 percent say Obama failed on economy, Libya ‘troubling’, many Americans are worried that this is only the beginning of a long economic downturn and the attacks in Libya are a sign of what is to come. A majority of Americans feel that Obama has “mostly failed at creating jobs” and on “growing the economy”. With many small businesses in dire need of an upturn in the economy; Obama’s track record doesn’t look good. With elections right around the corner, the attacks in Libya couldn’t have come at a worse time. The assaults shook the world on the 11^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The Obama Administration had knowledge that the attacks were planned by terrorist organization al Queda and still released a false statement calling the attacks “a spontaneous reaction to an offensive online video”. 67 % of voters found  it “troubling” that the Obama Administration knowingly lied to Americans about the attacks. Will this affect voter’s decisions on the upcoming elections? We will see in November.

Political Biography

 “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” – Ronald Reagan. 

I consider myself a conservative. I was brought up in a home with strong, conservative, Christian, morals. All my life I heard my parents listen to talk radio and yell their opinions at the radio as if it would respond. I was able to come away from that and start to formulate my own opinions about certain things. Similar to most conservatives I am extremely Pro-Life but I am not totally against same-sex marriage. I took the Political Ideology Quiz and ranked in the category of ‘staunch conservative’. While many of my opinions are right-winged, I do feel that our society is changing and our political values should correspond. I would like to get a better understanding of our government and political issues by the end of this class. I am extremely in favor of a strong military and hoping to go into the military after college; therefore a solid understanding of government is crucial. I scored 75% on the Civics Quiz and 8 out of 11 on the News IQ Quiz; not horrible but certainly room for improvement.