This Election is Bigger than the Message Either Party has put Forth

          I had a “disagreement” with my thirty-year-old daughter this past weekend.  We were talking politics.  She is a rabid President Obama supporter.  She mentioned that there was a war on women and that she supported President Obama because he was going to do something about the demeaning treatment of women.   I politely told her that the “war on women” was an immature issue (at least I thought I was polite).  I explained that America faces much bigger issues than whether or not health insurance companies should pay for contraception.  I further stated that the inequality in pay between women and men are not the result of any policy that any president has ever put forward.  To put it mildly, my daughter took offense to my belittling the issue of women’s rights.  However, I pointed out to her that the “war on women” issue was contrived to rally the Obama base.  I also pointed out that with all the serious issues facing American today, the “war on women” was as insignificant as who is the more likable candidate.

I tried to explain that the economy was hurting more people (including women) than any other issue.  If we do not elect a team of leaders that can work together on intelligent plans to right the American economy, we are going to be in big trouble (men and women).  To this discussion, my daughter said that the “war on women” was not an immature issue.  It was an example of so many other issues that define the values that young Americans want to see their country embrace.  It’s not just women, it is gay rights, and it is compassion for the poor who are hurt more by the economic conditions than the rich.  It’s about not cutting the social safety net so that the richest Americans can get more tax cuts.  My daughter laid out a good argument.  Her ideal of the American values are correct.  It is how Americans want to view our great country.

My discussion with my daughter made me realize that the Republicans are losing the war of the message.  Where the Republicans believe that their plans will provide more opportunity for all Americans – and therefore help lift Americans out of poverty – the Democrats have convinced a large share of Americans that our better days are behind us.  The Democrats say that what America needs is the compassion to help comfort those that will never have the opportunity to participate in a growing, strengthening America.  After all, the President’s own acceptance speech stated that he never said it was going to be easy, but that we had to continue down the same road. 

I do not know about you, but the road I’ve been looking at is a worsening economic climate with the safety net getting bigger and bigger to help cushion the blow for the less fortunate among us.  I wonder, how can our shrinking economic output continue to afford growing that safety net?  It would appear as though the same old path is just a downward spiral of slower economic activity, an even bigger safety net, and more taxes to pay for the bigger safety net.  Such a situation is the Petri dish for even slower economic activity.  Such a downward spiral will lead to anarchy – not to mention enormous human hardship.  What happens to all those individuals that use the safety net when the private sector economy finally goes bust?  (Simple economics, government sucks the private sector dry, no more tax base, no more taxes for the safety net.  Has anyone watched the riots in Greece?)

If the Democrats are correct, we are in a lot of trouble.  As Governor Susana Martinez of New Mexico asked at the Republican Convention: “...is welfare a way or life or a hand up?”  Let’s hope we can make America the place where we can always afford that hand up.  That hand up should allow people the ability to grasp for the opportunity (and the dignity) of a good-paying job.  Unfortunately, the message that I heard at the Democratic Convention was that welfare is the new way of life – not a temporary lifeline.  It was a moving message.  People had tears in their eyes as they listened to how the evil rich people were going to pay for the ever-growing safety net.  The Democratic Convention did not depict the America that I have known and loved.  It was not the America of hard work, sacrifice and opportunity.  It was the America of divisiveness, hand-outs, and weakness.

Now if either party would care to define how opportunities for all Americans are going to be created – I’m listening.  So are those independent voters that will decide the election.  We are all waiting.