Dear Senator Obama:
As a life long Democrat there is a point of clarification I hope you can address. Regarding the issue of the leadership of the Republican Party, it is apparent Mr. McCain can not so, so it is up to you. It is important that the American public see what has happened during the current financial train wreck. A wreck that affects us all.
(with all due respect and that this is not a personal attack but simply an outsider’s observation) Please ask Senator McCain the following:
As self proclaimed “mavericks” of the Republican Party and after nearly 30 years of ineffectively changing your party regarding important issues, do you think the American public is so naïve as to expect that you and Sarah Palin can now lead the nation when you can not lead your own party? If you can not change the direction of your own party, how are you to change the direction of the country?
We have seen time and again that under Republican leadership, rather than be the party change, the party of business and commerce, we have seen Republican leadership destruct business and commerce. This leadership has time and again resulted in the utter destruction of wealth! The historical Republican ideology of hands off, deregulation has led us into the worst economic crises of modern times…..1929 with Republican Herbert Hoover, 1987 with Ronald Reagan, and now 2008 with George W. Bush. Is there a pattern here? I THINK SO! Even Sarah Palin must know the adage that those who are ignorant of their own history are doomed to repeat it.
Through the Republican leadership and the undue influence of “big oil”, our country has had the policy of no energy policy. I’m sorry but “Drill, baby, drill” is NOT an energy policy. Letting the oil industry direct energy policy will only INCREASE our dependence on foreign oil. Letting the oil industry direct energy policy will result in the destruction of some of our countries most cherished natural areas. This is not a legacy I want to see. We need a BETTER county for our upcoming generations NOT a degraded country for the sake of gasoline. Corporations should not be left to lead our nation. The Republican policies of getting government out of the way have only, to our misfortune, allowed the "wolves to run the chicken coop". When the wolves cry that all the chickens are gone, we know why the chickens are gone. I, for one, do not think the American people should just go buy them more chickens. We need to recognize the coop and the chickens are not the problem, it is the wolves. We need change that recognizes problems, not just get different wolves!
By insisting on having a “hands off” policy regarding the financial and banking system, the Republicans once again have led us into another financial crisis. Mr. Bush inherited a spending surplus, but has led us into an unwarranted war in Iraq with deficit spending. Is this what we can expect of more Republican leadership? If not, what is? For what does the Republican Party stand? Where is it leading us? Where is their leadership? Where have the “mavericks” been over the last 8 years? Where is the change in the Republican Party!
When our country, our ship, stops dead in the water we need a captain. We don’t need a captain that says “eh, we seem to have an engine problem, but basically our ship is sound”. We need leadership that can see the problem before the crisis. We need someone who can get in there, get their hands dirty and fix our nation’s economic engine. We need a captain who can also have enough leadership to perform regular engine maintenance! We need a captain who can see the horizon and recognize when we have a problem before it become a crisis. We can’t wait until we hit Niagara Falls to turn the ship. We need hands on the wheel with vision or we do not have direction. We need leadership, not “hands off” policies. We need ideas not ideology!
Back to my question: When will you, Mr. McCain gain control of the Republican Party? Are we going to see, under your administration, four years of “herding cats”? Can our country endure four more years of Republican lack of leadership? We need leadership in time of crisis, not more poor judgment. Please, wait until you can effectively lead the Republican Party BEFORE you ask America to lead this nation. We can not have MORE OF THE SAME. Enough is Enough!!
