Why Rebublicans Should Vote For Obama [View all]

[viguy007]

When I was young I was an activist in the conservative wing of the Republican party. I was an officer for three years in the "College Republicans" of my university, a delegate to two state conventions, and twice a delegate to the "Midwest Federation of Collegian Young Republicans." I was also a member of "Young Americans for Freedom" (YAF), a conservative political group, and a delegate to their national convention. In our heart we knew Goldwater was right, the nation deserved a choice not an echo, and that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. We believed Kennedy sold out and weakened our defense by removing the Jupiter missiles from Turkey after the "Cuban Missile Crisis"; People's freedom and liberty was being impinged on and lost because of the regulations of the "Public Accommodations" law; America was headed down the road to socialism with the passage of Medicare.

If these sound vaguely familiar it is because our ideological descendants have taken an iron-grip control of the Republican party. I have moderated my views with life experience, but I remain and always vote Republican. I have also discovered that often, what is important is not what a man will say he will do, what is important is the nature of the man; character counts. Those who now control the Republican party seem to have forgotten Goldwater said "it is time to put conscience back in government. And by good example, put it back in all walks of American life." In their desire to win, they have chosen a man with no conscience.

Our candidate Mitt Romney, who is running to be our President, does and says many strange things. He seems to change his stance on issues depending upon who he running against. Does he believe in anything, or is he only seeking power? This is a man who says that if he paid more taxes than were required, he wouldn't be qualified to be president. As Lee Sheppard, a contributing editor at the trade publication "Tax Notes" said, “when you are running for president, you might want to err on the side of overpaying your taxes, and not chase every tax gimmick that comes down the pike.”

I quote Mitt Romney: “I pay all the taxes that are legally required, not a dollar more”; "I'm not familiar precisely with what I said, but I'll stand by what I said, whatever it was"; "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt"; "I'm not concerned about the very poor"; "I like being able to fire people"; "Corporations are people". Mitt would brag that he was a great businessman and we should vote for him because of this; he could turn around the economy. Yet, when it was shown his company outsourced jobs to other countries, fired employees and drove companies into bankruptcy, he stated he was not responsible for these things because they happened after he left the company in 1999. However, official SEC documents, which he signed, indicate he was CEO of his company until 2002. Either he lied to the SEC, which is perjury, or he is lying to us, we the people he wants to vote for him.

He has secret bank accounts in the offshore tax havens of Switzerland, Luxembourg, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands. Mitt's father, George, released 12 years of tax returns when he ran for President, saying "One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show, and what mattered in personal finance was how a man conducted himself over the long haul." When Mitt's campaign was asked to release more then two years of returns, it responded “We’ve given all YOU PEOPLE need to know" and has refused to give out additional information.

Does Mitt sound like a man of the people, a patriot, who would brave the freezing and starvation of Valley Forge, charge up Omaha Beach during the Invasion of Normandy (D-Day), or slog through the mosquito infested jungles of Viet Nam? Or does Mitt sound like he owes us nothing, and he deserves the presidency as if anointed thru the divine right of kings? After all, he says we should vote for him, yet refuses to tell us how he got enough money to live like a king? His attitude is: he owes "We, the people" nothing. YOU PEOPLE, just trust me, I am not a crook.

I am a Republican, but I am an American first. I love this country, but I watched in despair as democracy in the Republican primaries was desecrated by the power of money. In state after state, Mitt and his affiliated PAC's outspent his opponents by 6, 7, 10 times, using negative ads to grind them to a bloody pulp so that they could not be recognized for who they really were. Adolf Hitler said "The victor will never be asked if he told the truth"..."Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong." Does Mitt also believe this?

Those of us who love freedom and liberty must never forget "Watergate" and President Nixon's "ENEMIES LIST." This was a list which was used to harass ordinary American citizens who Nixon felt were his enemy. This was one of the reasons he was impeached in what is now known as the "Watergate" scandal. The official purpose of this list, as described by Nixon's White House Counsel John Dean, was "how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." I fear Richard Nixon and Mitt Romney are cut from the same cloth.

The only negative things we knew about Nixon before he was elected president were: he worked as an aide to Senator Joe McCarthy; he gave a maudlin speech about his dog "Checkers" and his wife's cloth coat; and he did not shave very well. My fear about Mitt Romney may be baseless, for no man can see into another's man heart. But his actions in the primaries; his secrecy and attitude when questioned about his finances; the lack of compassion and empathy indicated by his teen-age bullying and tying his dog to the roof of his car for 12 hours; and his seeming lack of core values in an endless chase for political power; these all add up in a very troubling way. I know I seem to be a traitor to my fellow Republicans, but feeling the way I do, I would rather be a traitor to my party, then a traitor to my country.

If we elected Mitt, we would have a man who is closely tied to Wall Street and corporate financiers, in fact he was one; he was ruthless in the way he handled his business (Bain) and political campaigns; he has no problem being deceptive, to either us or the SEC (as to when he left Bain), along with for many years not disclosing a Swiss bank account on government financial disclosure forms; and he is completely opaque and secretive in whatever he does. In sum, a man whose attitudes and aloofness more closely resembles that of royalty, rather than those of a patriot.

When I was young I was very active in the Republican party. I have been a Republican my whole life, and have a voters registration card dated in 1993 indicating that fact. However now politically, I am a nobody. I am one citizen, one voter who happened to vote Republican my whole life, and decided to vote for the other guy this time around. There is nothing extraordinary about that, it happens in every election, in both directions. I just happen to write well, and took the time to document why I made this decision. I reveled nothing new, I just took what is already in the public record and wove it into a coherent tapestry. Watergate ruined political activism for me, while I was working my heart out for a candidate (Nixon) who I believed in, he was abusing and shredding the Constitution. I decided that I had better things to do with my life, so I became "Joe Private Citizen." A voter, but not an actor in the great drama of American democracy. What I found out about Mitt Romney changed that.

Republican Presidents Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan, Ford were Americans first and only secondly were they Republicans. They would work with Democrats and compromise for the good of the country. They would be shocked and loudly denounce any other Republican like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who said "The single most important thing we (Republicans in Congress) want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." We were in the middle of the greatest economic crisis since the 1930's and my Republican party has as its main goal trying to make sure the president fails — even if the country fails right along with him. Shame on him and others like him.

It is time for moderate people of conscience to take back the Republican party !!!