November 4th

This is completely random I know, but despite the fact that I have three blog postings started that are filled with vacation photos, this is what I was reading tonight and on my mind. Consequently this is what my post is about.

Who should I vote for? Remember how Leo became a U.S. citizen in August? That was his first remark after coming home. Ahhh.... the million dollar question, or perhaps the 700 billion dollar question?

Anyway, I tried to research tonight and went on the Illinois state website. That wasn't very helpful. I mean, most of the candidates hadn't submitted any sort of statement on their candidacy. Blah. And, since I am in Illinois, a good deal of the candidates were Democrat and running unchallenged. I'm an independent--but I tend to lean Republican. Sigh. That's not so auspicious in the state where Barack Obama is a senator.

So then I found this site called Factcheck.org which is nonpartisan and features headlines such as "McCain calls Obama's refundable tax credits "welfare," but calls his own "reform." and "Obama's false medicare claim. He accuses McCain of proposing to cut benefits. Not true." and "McCain and Obama accuse each other of falsehoods, and both have good reason." Well, nothing new on that site. Nothing new under the sun as far as politics are concerned for that matter.

So then I went to this site ontheissues.org which supposedly features every political leader on every issue. And I took a quiz. Yes. Yes. Sad to say but true. I took an online quiz to try to determine who I should vote for. I hang my head in shame. But it was kind of fun (like all online quizzes).

Apparently I'm 58% matched with John McCain. No surprise, really that's who I was planning on voting for. Then I was 40% matched with Bob Barr. Who in the heck is Bob Barr?!?!?! And then 35% matched with Barack Obama. And I'm a moderate conservative according to them as well.

Things became a bit more tricky when it came to the senator race however. I'm 30% matched with Larry Stafford--umm he's in the same party as Bob Barr. That would be the Libertarian party. Anyone heard of that? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Yep, me neither. Then I'm matched with Senator Durbin at 28% (the incumbent DEMOCRAT) and last but not least 15% matched with Steve Sauerberg the Republican candidate. Sigh.

So really my question is still up there. Who should I vote for? A 15% match is pathetic. Very pathetic.

At least I'm well informed on major issues. My sister Andrea and I discuss politics at length. And U.S. political history. Fascinating. My sister obtained her Master's in history, specifically specializing in and around WWII, and currently teaches a post-WWII history university class. It's always fun to hear her anti-public opinion opinions. Like that it was a good thing for the civil rights movement that JFK was assassinated because LBJ put through way more reforms than JFK ever would have. And Nixon was a rather good president, too bad he was impeached. Anyway, I could go on and on, (I do in fact, on the phone to Andrea), but I'm supposed to be writing a talk on the Beatitudes, which is an extremely hard topic I think, while appearing deceptively simple. Any insights are welcome. It's one of those topics that kind of make you feel like it was a personal message to you, or otherwise like a deer caught in headlights. Merciful. Poor in spirit. Meek. Umm, yeah, I need to work on that. With that, I bid you goodnight and see you at the polls on Nov. 4th (I think I'll bring a coin to toss.)