All of that because right now, considering Obama, Clinton and McCain I have no clue what is really going on. It’s strange (and good) that we get some dirt during the elections such as “Hillary dodged bullets in Sarajevo” – apparently NOT. Obama’s choice of clergyman didn’t prove to be nearly as wise as it seems befitting to his other astute decisions and self-aggrandizing pronouncements. If we conclude that it is highly unlikely that I was lobotomized during my naturalization ceremony – I can only derive one particularly unpleasant conclusion: Our elections are more and more focused on choosing the lesser of two evils. It sounds a little defeating to a young man who grew up in Europe dreaming to come to America and finally became American, while loosing his critical judgment in the process. Where are the real quality candidates? I would have liked to see Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Al Gore, (perhaps some type of Adlai Stevenson), perhaps some charming young man like John Kennedy, perhaps some older soft-spoken candidate like Hubert Humphry or even Ralph Nader type of a “consumer advocate” as opposed to Elliot Spitzer kind of a self-serving advocate. Jimmy Carter’s eternal optimism and that famous peanut farmer grin is what won him the presidency (aside from not having any skeletons in his closet), yes his brother Billy proved to be a liability after the fact but he served honorably and became a well known fighter against poverty and homelessness – very few of our presidents can make that claim.

So who do we vote for?

Just today, Tuesday April 8, 2008, I finished reading the Sunday issue of the New York Times which gave prominent space to John McCain’s family (three generations of highly ranked officers, 4 star Admirals, etc. including his 19 year old son serving as a lance corporal in the Marines in today’s Iraq. To me – that’s integrity that I sorely miss from most other candidates. It’s deeds that count, not so much words, projects, pipe dreams, promises and other fairly tales as if we had stepped through the mirror at “Alice in Wonderland”. – No thank you, I’ll go for McCain, if nothing else only because I support his family’s loyalty to our country, his devotion, his war record (don’t let me remind you that Hillary’s husband didn’t inhale, and he wasn’t a draft dodger)…. So much for my 2 pennies.