Open Letter to Presidential Candidates

To:
Barack Obama
Hillary Rodham Clinton
John McCain

This is the voice of an American citizen.

Electing a President of the United States is much more than selecting an individual to fill the office. It is a statement by the American people on the the kind of government we want. How that statement is crafted is highly dependent on the kind of campaign that candidates wage. My vote goes to the one who poses the right questions about the right issues.

Currently our country is a mess brought about the demise of real democratic control of the government. The will of the majority has been usurped by the few, which is an oligarchy, which by definition serves only its own agenda. We have allowed our government to invade another country which had not attacked us. We have allowed the mastermind of the greatest attack ever on American to roam free instead facing the American judicial system. The economy is tanking from the cost of the war, the excessive borrowing of money from outside our country, and we have allowed American jobs to float away across the sea. Our national reputation in the global community is badly tarnished, and fascism has become part of daily American life. I never would have believed this country would be debating how much torture is acceptable and when, because in that discussion is the clear and present evidence this country has lost its core of ethics. Why Christians are not outraged, is beyond comprehension. Why Christians are not outraged that Christians are suffering the worst persecution of modern times in Iraq because of our actions there, can only be ignorance of cosmic proportions.

SO, CANDIDATES, LISTEN UP!

Democrats: Either Obama or Clinton will make an excellent President, and neither has character flaws except in the imagination of campaign managers and right wing extremist commentators. I want to hear from each of you how you will overcome the power of the Republican oligarchy, how you will stop and reverse the flow of American jobs overseas, and how you will secure the benefits of liberty to all Americans. Talk about McCain, talk about the war, talk about the economy. Compete in the market place of ideas, not in the gutter of personal sniping.



Republicans: Of all the candidates you have fielded this election, McCain is the least offensive, though far from ideal, especially in terms of the disastrous war mentality, the trashing of the economy and the shredding of the constitution. On the outside chance you might win the White House, start talking now, in paragraphs not sound bites, about correcting the mess you've inherited. We have a huge and growing national debt. Debts only go away by paying for them, and the government has only one source of real income, so pretending that tax cuts will make things better is capital D Dumb. Attacking spending programs for what they sound like, instead of what they do, does not constitute financial discipline. If you get elected by the notion of continuing the war in Iraq, denying equal rights to all Americans, and refusing to pay our debts, then you're going to be saddled with those policies which can only drive our country further along the road to our ultimate bankruptcy of our economy and our morals.

Thank you,
Wayne Schotten