Political Silly Season, Scoring Candidates is Important | Eastern North Carolina Now

    A lot will happen during the next two and one half months. Almost all of it designed to confuse, throw you off track and lead you into making an emotional decision in the political races. Voters who make emotional decisions tend to make them based on insignificant details. I ask a friend the other day why he was voting for Obama and he quickly said "Because the Supreme Court allowed corporations to make individual political donations". Handing out punishment for one bad decision of an unrelated issue should not be the deciding factor in who is best to be President. By the same token, the Supreme Court decided for Obama on the health care issue. Consider the Constitution and Bill of Rights in making your decision on every person you vote for.

    Too many people vote their pocket book, or dogmatically vote for one party or the other or have an agenda that leads to establishing a comfort zone for themselves. Seldom do we hear about selecting the candidate who would do the best thing for the entire nation, state or county to the exclusion of our personal advantage. Many competent candidates look like radicals. It takes courage to vote for them. Do fewer voters consider the future of our government and select candidates who will preserve our form of government than fifty years ago? Unfortunately the answer is yes, we have voted for a lot of people who have steered us into our present predicament.
This image is from back in 2004, back when Commissioner Hood Richardson had hair ... uh, strike that comment: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage
    Take note that we have solved no major National, State or County problems since the last elections whether two or four years ago. So, all incumbents face the same test "How many problems have you helped solve since your last election"? If you, the voter, cannot point to either their strong public position on important issues or their vote toward a solution, then you should seriously question giving your vote to them. We need to elect problem solvers not fence sitters.

    Some of the problems that have not been solved or even addressed are: illegal immigration, illegal drugs, all governments are spending more year over year, we are importing more goods, there has been no regulatory relief, no tort relief, welfare rolls continue to grow, jobs and the economy are terrible, and energy policy is running backwards.

    Don't get caught up in the enigma of "holding your nose and voting". We have all done too much of that. It may be better to vote for that less desirable new candidate than to return the ineffective incumbent just because he happens to be in your party. It is more important to send the message that if you do not do your elected job we will send you home than to pridefully say our party controls this or that. This approach to selecting candidates will help break up the political boss system that both parties have developed. This political "boss" system is the cause of the present grid lock. The political boss system is based on steering all money to either the "boss" or to the political party. The "boss" and a few henchmen select their puppets to run. They fund their puppets and deny funding to opponents in the primary elections. Those unfortunate candidates who win their primary elections in spite of not having been picked to be a puppet are denied support in the general election. Marc Basnight ran the most effective political boss system North Carolina has seen during the last 50 years. The Republican Party is trying to set up a boss system. If you make political donations, send your money directly to the candidate. Do not give money to a middle man PAC, Political Party or caucus.

    Voters should go to the polls with the intent of planting terror in the hearts of all incumbents who have not actually done a significant number of things to improve this Nation, the State and each County. Within our form of government are the seeds for a bloodless revolution. We need to use this miracle of government to set the Nation, State and each County on the course our fore fathers intended.