November One

This year's presidential election has really gotten to me more then it ever had. Perhaps my greater awareness of Christ's presence in my life, and trying to base my life decisions to conform to my faith. Although I have elected mostly Republican presidential candidates in the past, once I did try to look at the person and what he promised during the campaign and voted for Jimmy Carter based on his promises and have regretted that decision. His lack of decisive leadership and his passivity have brought down our country to the brink of disaster. On the same vein, I voted for GW twice, and on hindsight, his second term has been a failure of leadership. So now we come to two candidates that I'd rather not make the choice, but given the cards that were dealt, I had chosen and voted McCain, for the following reasons:

- His stance on life, abortion, and gay marriage
- His life as a soldier, prisoner of war, and years of service to the country as a senator is well known.
- His wealth is not a sudden occurrence, and what he has is principally because of his wife's being a beer company heiress
- His patriotism and love for our country seemed genuine to me
- I believe the things he said, especially when he is not in the main public eye, and mostly I think he says what he believed, as opposed to saying what the people want him to say.
- His past records in congress shows that he is not shy from making decisions yea or nay, as opposed to avoiding responsibility by voting PRESENT
- I have read an analysis by a mathematician comparing taxes on families earning less than $100K during the Clinton and Bush presidential years, based on tax tables comparison, and despite all the rhetoric’s, the data showed that the people are better off during Bush's presidential term.
- My fear of the governance of this country with no checks and balance as congress heads toward a 'veto proof' majority
- A drastic change in the direction of the Supreme Court decisions

I could also list the reasons of why I did not vote for the other candidate, but that would be disingenuous since some of you have voted for him. On November Four, we will know the choice of the people whether it is McCain or Obama, and although many will then say that the Lord have chosen the president of the United States, this is NOT CORRECT. The Lord gave us the freedom to make choices, and whomever we elected as our president elect, that is us who made that election. There had been many examples in the Old Testament of the Jewish people choosing the 'wrong' King of their own, and the Jewish people at that time reaped what they sown. We too will experience the consequences of our choice, good or bad.