“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”
-Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862
We are a year away from the next presidential election. In the most recent ones, I unsuccessfully endorsed John McCain, Herman Cain and Mitt Romney - endorsements I vehemently evermore regale given the current administration’s seven years of devastating failure and disastrous performance both in domestic and foreign affairs. Yet, I am hesitant to outright endorse a specific candidate this time around. Precisely because no one ever seems to listen until it is too late; much like Butch in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I never get sick of being correct. That said, I do lean toward and favor Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio.
I always have held an ardent reverence for Carly, a strong woman who helmed and shaped several Fortune 500 companies and overcame hurdles, tragedy and sexism to achieve it. She also can rock a pair of jeans or look elegant dressed to the nines. More importantly, she has a record as a pragmatic and stout decision-maker who does not pander to her base simply to garner votes unlike some other candidates. In the media, her time as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, unsurprisingly, has been maligned by those who oppose and dislike her. Why? Because she made decisions that did not sit well with some of those same people affected by those decisions in order to save the company - one that stands today as a leading technology company. That is business, and this country desperately needs to get back into business with a president who will lead from the front - unlike the current one who does so from behind, no less in his mom jeans - no matter who might be upset by their decisions and policies.
Then there is Marco Rubio. The current junior U.S. Senator from Florida, and former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, he has the political acumen without the Washington entrenchment of most of the other candidates - especially the two leading Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, whose tenures date back decades as bureaucratic insiders. A Cuban-American, a characteristic personal to me having a Cuban-born grandfather, he is the son of immigrants who came to cherish and relish in the dream and promise of the United States. As the president, this is a trait important to upholding the fundamental values of the nation - juxtaposed to the current one who regularly chastises all that is grievous with it rather than celebrating all that is worth preserving about it. By all accounts, he also is a regular, middle-class family man who understands the burdens and struggles of average Americans.
Meanwhile, as previously mentioned, a smug, unethical opportunist with a closet of pantsuits - among other things - currently under numerous federal investigations and a cantankerous, doddering socialist advocating funding everything with unicorns and fairy dust lead the Democratic candidates. Quite the distinctive pairing of diversity politics, and both completely out-of-touch with reality. The one candidate I admired, Jim Webb, came across as honorable, principled and unassuming. Unfortunately, he, literally, was forced to leave the party because of those traits - illustrating all that is needed to know about the state of the Democratic party. As such, we are on a precipitous divide in this country, in which those with any modicum of common sense want to continue being the beacon while others, for no other explanation, apparently wish to see it broken.
To paraphrase the knight at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, choose wisely this time around America.
©2015 Steve Sagarra
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