Undecided

Today is primary election day and I will be voting before I head off to work. I have been fairly undecided how I will cast my vote, at least for the presidential race. Ideally, my candidate of choice would be a moderate conservative or a conservative liberal.

I would prefer someone who will be tough on illegal immigration issues because we need to secure our borders in this dangerous world. We need to make changes in our immigration laws to allow more people in legally who want to come here to work and make a better life for their families. I do not think that illegals should be given a free pass because that flies in the face of citizens and legal immigrants who abide by the laws of our country.

On the issues of Iraq, I want a candidate who will not rush to bring our troops home and leave that country in worse chaos. Right or wrong, we started this mess and we need to follow through to assure that our servicemen and the Iraqi people have not suffered for naught.

I would like to see our nation's healthcare crisis addressed. I know first hand what is lacking in our system. I see patients every day who are given free healthcare, good healthcare, because they fall into the low income category necessary. The working poor and the middle class are the ones who suffer the most. Our senior citizens who have worked hard, sometimes with two jobs at once, to support their families and educate their children, are faced with having to spend down every dime and sell off all their assets before they are able to get assistance with the enormous cost of caring for their spouses with critical or chronic illness. This plummets them into poverty very quickly. It is the shame of our nation. We need to find a solution that is not income driven, at least when a catastrophic condition exists. More and more seniors will find themselves in this position as time goes on because families are smaller and spread out all over the nation.

I believe we should have as little government interference in our lives as possible. We should not have a Congress who believes that only they are capable of thinking for all. And they should all have to live by the laws that they enact. Maybe they, like in so many other professions, should be held legally liable for the laws they pass if they have a negative impact on the well-being of our nation.

I want a candidate who believes in the freedom of choice: in partners, in reproduction, in religion, in end of life decisions. The pursuit of happiness is not possible if government dictates what can and can't be done with these very personal issues.

I believe a candidate should work hard to unite the people of this nation, one who can motivate our citizens to get involved and work toward solutions that are reasonable, fair, and not a tremendous tax burden on the backs of the working people. Someone who will champion the rights of women, who will work to solve our racial inequities, and fight to keep our manufacturing jobs in this country.

With this said I am off to vote. I will be choosing a candidate that I believe is the lesser of all evils. That is a sad statement. That I would vote for the candidate that I think will do the least harm as opposed to the most good because that is all there is on the ballot is the reality of our times.

Peace!