(ThyBlackMan.com) When running for President, a candidate — incumbent or fresh faced opponent — is running on a platform of what they will do for you. They are running on a platform on what they will do for the country and how that will inevitably affect you. Sometimes their promises come into fruition. Sometimes they don’t. If the latter should happen, should the candidate turned President be held accountable and politically crucified for it, or should they be given a pass?
I ask because as it stands now the general election will be won on issues of economics and not on social issues. No matter how enraged people become over gay marriage, abortion, affirmative action, contraception etc. those issues do not trump a person not having a job, an adequate paycheck, or comfort in knowing his or her home, car, life won’t be repossessed by banks with no remorse or shame.
Both Mitt Romney and President Obama are running their campaigns on issues of economics. Romney is down playing himself as a Wall Street insider but touting his business experience as the calling card to how he will flip this country on its head and give it jobs, six percent unemployment, and prosperity without redistributing wealth or robbing the rich to give to the poor. He is the man who understands what productivity actually means and how the market will perform under global pressures. On the other side of the aisle, President Obama is running on a platform of what he’s done during his first term. His team touts the four million jobs created in the three years he’s been in office. The stabilization of the stock market that is back to 12-thousand from 6-thousand. The mortgage modification program that has allowed those 
homeowners who can to stay in their homes at a reduced rate and mortgage payment. The stimulus that saved jobs for firefighters, teachers and police officers as well as cutting taxes for 95 percent of Americans.
But what these two candidates don’t campaign on is the reality of where America is today. Mitt Romney is trying to deliver the hopeful optimism Obama spoon fed to a fed up electorate in 2008. Then, Senator Obama’s rhetoric was, “The Republicans made a mess. I, a Democrat will fix it.” Mitt Romney’s rhetoric now is similar, “Obama, the Democrat, did not fix the mess. He made it worse.” The truth of the matter is more complex than both of these storybook scenarios. For starters, Republicans didn’t ruin the economy by themselves. They had help from President Bill Clinton when he repealed the Glass-Steagall Act by signing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Similarly, the mess made in 2007/2008 was not completely fixed by the Democrats because of the blockade on legislation from blue-dog Democrats and Republicans combined. On the issue of the economy everyone’s hand has a streak of smear.
Moreover, accusations of vulture capitalism, inexperience and global circumstance has slowed both campaigns on the economic issue. Neither Romney nor Obama can rocket into the White House with their records. But then again they shouldn’t be able to.
One of the most invaluable tenets of the American democracy is the people make the choice. The electoral college, delegates and super delegates not withstanding, the people ultimately decide who they want to govern them, their money, and their social interests. Because of this fact, candidates must appeal to people with their platforms. Mitt Romney and President Obama are nearly tied on the public appeal portion of their presidential campaigns. Polls released weekly show the gap between the candidates closing constantly. This doesn’t just indicate the country is evenly split on the candidates, but also foreshadows the bigger picture being the country and the economy can go in any direction because it really is that bad. No one can predict exactly what will make it better. It is in this instance the candidate’s views in totality become relevant and where social issues may play a small yet significant deciding factor if the economic issue is in fact a coin toss.
Thanks to PolitiFact we the people can now keep score of everything anyone promises in politics. Thanks to news outlets we can roll tape of a flip flop. Thanks to analysts we can predict and counter predict how certain outcomes will affect the people of this country. But what we have never stopped to consider and ask ourselves is whether this keeping score of everything is way too much for one person to handle.
If a company were in trouble the way our economy was in trouble when President Obama took office, a private company would have hired a team of people to fix it through a collective nearly unanimous decision. Instead we hired one person to make all the decisions after listening to a team of subordinates. We didn’t hire a team of equals. We hired a man and his posse to fix a problem not seen in eight decades. Then we asked that same man to not only focus on the gravest problem facing us but the minutia as well.
Equal pay for women, health care for all, end our two wars, keep us safe, kill the number one terrorist, close the Cuban prison, let gays fight openly in the military, let them marry, give more money to matriculating high school seniors, balance the budget, reduce the deficit, cut taxes, restore the auto industry. The Presidency is one task after another after another that even the greatest multi-tasker can’t handle. I don’t care how well you can walk and chew gum: a stick of Juicy Fruit and a non-elevated walking trail this is not. This is more a pack of Bubblelicious on Everest. Our issues take concentration, strength, and sheer will.
Correcting the wrongs in this country will take more than one man or even two. It will take more than four years. It will take more than eight years. It doesn’t matter who is President, Obama or Mitt Romney, our issues will not be solved over night or even a decade. Why these two campaign act as if they are the answer to glory I don’t understand. This recovery is a marathon not a sprint.
What I’d like to see as this general election soldiers on is the acknowledgement neither man will make everything better. Neither party will make everything better. In reality some things will never go back to the way they were. Like the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 before it, the economic crash of 2008 has forever changed U.S. We will never be the way we were. We can’t.
If we can embrace the change about all of us then that might make this election that much more easy to stomach. No matter who wins on November 6, 2012 there will be one thing they can’t change about this country and that is the different attitude citizens have toward the office of the Presidency and what the President can and can not do given one term or even two.
Like all men Presidents are fallible.
As citizens we should realize we set them up to fail every time one takes office; especially in the midst of crisis.
Should citizens have such Great Expectations from their President?
Staff Writer; Nikesha Leeper
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