All right, so I didn't have a costume for Pearl, well minus the star episode, or take her trick-or-treating this Halloween (we had a birthday party to go to), but I did make her stand in line with me for an hour to vote. I figured the pain of keeping her tightly in my arms despite her squirming and begging for books (we voted at the library), not to mention the hair pulling and numerous "hi's" to the lady in front of us, would do her more good than letting her eat tons of gooey candy (fine, I didn't want her to have the candy mainly because I end up eating all of it). We should have skipped the early voting though and just gone today. Jeff said he didn't wait more than five minutes to cast his ballot.
What a great blessing it is to live in this country and have the right to vote! So many sacrificed everything they had to give us the right to vote and make a difference in our country. Alas though, I admit I have a few pet peeves when it comes to voting:
1) Why do we let the candidates spend billions of dollars on advertising, parties, and debates? Think of all the problems we could fix if we limited the amount of money that was spent or better yet, made the candidates donate a huge percentage of it to charities or to programs they support. What if the president put forth as much effort fundraising once they were in office to accomplish all of the projects they wanted to do? We might actually get our country out of a trillion dollar debt, help the poor, and fix health care. What a joke! Who needs to spend millions on TV commercials, signs, and a ginormous celebration party? Ridiculous!
2) Health care. Yeah it sucks but hey how about beefing up the public health infrastructure and actually turning this country towards a prevention model instead of just waiting for the blood to spill and then slapping a band aid on it like we currently do? I would love, love, love if we finally had a candidate realize the potential savings that prevention would have. Not to mention the fact that our country is seeing epidemics of chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, premature birth, and obesity that will drain our health care system even more. In times of tough economics, public health and prevention are the first to go.
3) The whole electoral vote thing. I don't get it, I don't know why our country does things this way, but in a state as red as can be, sometimes it gets a bit discouraging knowing that no matter how you vote the electoral votes, the ones that really count, are still going to go to a certain party. Shouldn't the popular vote count more?
4) Could one candidate please tell us how they actually plan to get things done? I mean, don't most of us want the same things no matter what political party we belong to? Having happy, healthy families, good jobs and a strong economy, new energy sources, and opportunities for education and growth? Most of the time the candidates sound exactly the same to me and none of them actually delve into how they plan to implement the changes they so quickly speak of. I spent several hours studying each candidate's websites (even the local ones) and debates to try and figure out just how they planned to accomplish their ideas but nothing! Just the same old...we need change, I'm the right person for the job....blah blah blah.
5) Well I can't think of anything else but ending on a four seemed odd. So I'll just say that I love getting the "I voted today" stickers and seeing how proud everyone is to wear them all day. Oh and how cool the "Leave Your Print" website is because it would pull your ballot for you so you would know exactly who you would vote for come election day.
And no, I'm not telling you who I voted for! My family already gave me a hard enough time as it is!!!
