We are living a story: Obama/Biden, Romney/Ryan

I've been thinking a lot about the election lately...how can I not when I'm confronted with it on all sides. This is the time of year I almost completely withdraw to print media, refusing to allow all my senses to be manipulated, but election time also provokes me to thought outside my usual boundaries.  In that light, I was listening to commentators on NPR today and realized we are again riding a swinging pendulum. When President Obama ran, he was the first 'black' man to run; Romney is the first Mormon to run for president. How we do love labels, but this goes beyond mere labeling--Americans are searching for something and using elections as a tool to find whatever it is but there seems to be an element of hysteria this time around.

My question is this: must we vote on someone's personal issues? Aren't there bigger things out there than someone's color, religion, preference for alcohol or non, abortion or no--these things are huge triggers than can move a voter's finger in a heartbeat, but how about poverty; hunger and pain in a country held in a corporate death-grip?  We are so vulnerable to those triggers that we will overlook the warts on our noses once the trigger is pressed. Maleable, self-centered, fear-filled minds are not given to rational thought.

The story goes like this: we elect a president who is different and we are absolutely positive will solve all our social and international problems. Turns out the problem takes longer than anticipated and is extremely complex, so let's push that pendulum as far as possible the other direction to see what happens--get someone else who will reverse everything, take four years to do it and figure out it didn't work. Somewhere, we may decide to literally think for ourselves and make rational decisions without our strings being pulled.