More of the same?

When have we ever elected a president based on his legislative record? Maybe before television...maybe before talk radio...maybe before the free press...

The vote for president is the vote for an ideal. It's why we are always so dissatisfied with our choices. Those clamoring around for Barack Obama want change so badly that they don't care if no one has told them what that change will be. If we get too specific then our presidential candidates drift further from what we want. The Obama campaign has also been cast in the theme of hope and most fitting that it should be. We have to hope that Obama's change is the right change for the country.

Of course, we have to hope that the change to John McCain would be the right change, too. It's hard to say. It's always hard to say.

How will the office change them? It has changed all the other occupants. There's a reason their hair always goes gray. The question isn't what these two men have said they'll do. It probably isn't even a matter of legistislation sponsored and voted. It has to do with each man's default setting. In the crucible of the Oval Office, as the ills of the world bore down upon them, what is the reaction of John McCain and Barack Obama?

I don't have that answer and am forced to guess. I won't vote for Barack Obama not because I don't trust what he says, not because I think he lacks the experience or judgment and not even because I disagree with him on key issues of our day. I can't vote for Barack Obama because I fear that Barack Obama's default setting is that the American people needn't take responsibility for themselves when the government could so handily take care of everything for us.

I work with the government everyday. Their inspectors work full-time in my plant under obligation to protect the food supply. Guess what? They don't. I read government legislation for a living and have to interpret and enforce it. Guess what? Congress doesn't have a clue. Look no further than COOL (Country of Origin Labeling). It took eight years to write, pass and implement. The week it went into effect, 31 senators wrote a letter to the USDA saying that the final rule the USDA developed wasn't what they had meant it to be at all. Eight years to write a law they didn't intend to write? God Bless America!

Barack Obama wants more of that. Barack Obama wants more regulation. Barack Obama wants more government control. I don't and so I don't want Barack Obama. Of course, if he's elected my job security goes up and I'll probably have to hire a half dozen more people so he might create jobs. And your bacon will cost $10 a pound, a burger at McDonald's will cost about the same. How long those new jobs will last at that price is hard to say?

Change is not always such a great thing. I don't care for Obama's brand of change. And the voting public doesn't care one bit about the finer points of COOL or that Obama voted for it and McCain voted against it.

If we could change the voters, now that's the kind of change I'm looking for.