Election

November 4 has finally come. There were times when I thought this day would never get here. It's no secret that I voted for McCain and Palin. I'm not a big fan of Obama (I'm not a huge fan of McCain, but I think that Palin and he together might be a good fit). I'm not terrified of Obama winning. I am terrified of some of Obama's ideas but I don't think the Senate and the House will ever let some of his ideas come to fruition. Even if we have a majority of Democrats in these branches, I think there are enough moderate to conservative democrats that won't go with his ideas.

I'm not a huge fan of Obama's "share the wealth" plan. Some people get offended when people call Obama a socialist, but that is a socialist idea. Being a socialist doesn't make someone a bad person any more than being a republican, democrat, libertarian, etc. I'm all for helping the poor, needy, disabled, etc. I'm afraid of the governments ability to run this type of program. We waste so much money and I think a big problem is the oversight of these programs. Other countries that have adopted this policy have seen it fail in most cases.

I don't think Obama is a Muslim, but if he were that wouldn't make him a bad person. Those beliefs are very different than mine, but so is Joe Lieberman's, Mitt Romney's and several others. Bad and good people aren't restricted to one color, religion, country, etc.

I am a little nervous of how Obama would handle foreign policy. I feel he will be seen as weak (by other countries) on this. There are a lot of countries that don't like us one bit. I think most of this is out of jealousy, but regardless they don't like us. If Obama comes across as weak on foreign policy, will they test us? I pray they don't.

Anyway, we are nearing the end of W's tenure. I think W has been a decent president. I don't think he's been great but I don't think he's been near the worst either. I agree with some of his choices and I don't agree with some of his choices. I think he's gotten blamed for a lot of things that should be blamed on the president, the senate, and the house. They all decided to go to Iraq. It wasn't just a decision by the president. Yes we went under the wrong pre-tenses, but they all looked at the same information and the majority decided to go. One good thing came out of it, and that is that Hussein is no longer in power. I can't imagine living in a country under those situaions.

The economy was great under Bill Clinton. Did he do a good job, yes. Did he do it all by himself, no. George senior raised taxes before Clinton took office which helped towards the surplus. The dot com revolution helped tremendously, but it eventually played out. We bought Macy a mutual fund in May of 2000 which started decreasing in value from the day we bought it. Wasn't this the last year of Clinton's presidency? So the economy was sliding in his last year. Tack on 9-11 and I can understand the first 4 years of W's term. Then it rebounded well, but now it's in the tank. I do think W has to take some blame for the condition we are in now. Again, not all the blame but a good chunk of it.

No matter who wins they have a tough road ahead. I do believe we'll see a boost in the stock market after today regardless of the outcome. People want the election over and when it's over things will settle down a little.

Stepping off my soapbox.