A Few Thoughts on the Midterms

It is unbelievable to me that in this day of advanced technology that more than one week after the midterm elections of 2022 we still are counting ballots to determine the results of close to 20 U.S. House of Representative seats across our nation. 

I’ve always praised Collier County Supervisor of Elections Jennifer Edwards for the wonderful job she has done running that office. That praise is well deserved, as she has yet to let the voters of this county down or embarrass the citizens who elected her 22 years ago. Her upbringing in Kentucky and education in that great state has helped her to bring a sense of professionalism to that office which is sometimes overlooked or undervalued.

Citizens of this county should be very proud of this professional and wonderful team she has assembled. All you have to do is remember the great embarrassment which was brought to our state due to the perennially troubled election department in Broward County. Those embarrassments continue within the county on the east side of our state with no apparent resolutions since that terrible demonstration of incompetence during the 2000 Presidential vote and subsequent elections after that.

We can all just be happy that Ms. Edwards has done a stellar job of heading her department and has put together a team which is flawless in their execution of the nation’s hallmark of democracy, the VOTE!

I wish I could make the same claims about how Republicans seem to have become experts at turning a great potential victory celebration nationwide into a sad evening this last Tuesday. Watching the returns that evening and sensing the “big red wave” would lose its momentum was sad for those who were eagerly awaiting the opportunity to celebrate the return of fiscal management sanity to our national government.

Yes, I know as I write this, we will probably eke out a small victory in the House of Representatives. This insignificant victory has already begun to lose its luster as this small potential majority may be overshadowed by petty infighting in regard to positioning for leadership roles within the party. This petty squabbling could result in the evaporation of the unity required for a successful legislative agenda aimed at bringing a sense of sanity to survive.

During the last two years we have seen the nation’s healthy economy spiral out of control and today is perilously close to a deep recession. Inflation is destroying the American dream and retirees have watched their future dim considerably from what it was. The crisis on the Southern Border has turned into chaos with a flood of undocumented individuals coming across the border because of the lack of a cohesive immigration policy. These necessary immigration policies allowed my grandparents to come here legally, to succeed and prosper as American citizens and follow their dreams.

This last election was an important one for our nation. Why Republicans failed to field better candidates   to match their message to the hopes of an American electorate is unclear, even though in every poll result I’ve seen the vast majority of American voters genuinely did feel the nation was headed in the wrong direction, so what did go wrong! How could the American people put the same individuals back in control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate during such a watershed election.

As we evaluate this election, we must look to improve our messaging and the voting publics’ perception of the party and platform. It is a flawed strategy to think you win by being the party that is happy with stalling the other party’s agenda. That has never worked and never will. We must develop a message that shows we know how to govern for the benefit of all the nation’s citizens, instead of being known as the party of “no,” but instead dedicate our messaging to improving the plight of all Americans. 

Yes, the Trump factor had an effect, and I am not sure how long that will linger into the future, but this nation and the party has to be larger than that one individual.

More important than that is to show what can be done by stimulating the American “can do attitude” as we develop programs and initiatives to get the job done, not mindlessly throwing trillions of dollars at issues without a solid plan to improve infrastructure and technology; tap the significant inventories of energy producing materials so as to not be held hostage by those who are not our allies; and create healthcare initiatives, coupled with a solid plan to ensure the American people that these are not just feel good programs in words, but instead in accomplishments.

President Eisenhower’s plan for the Interstate Highway System, as well as President Kennedy’s challenge to Americans to put a man on the moon with those subsequent advances in technology which came out of that initiative proved what we could accomplish when we worked together.

We are the leaders in the technology world, and we must protect those advances from being stolen from American industry and instead be put to valuable uses both here and with our allies.

We must also step up and take care of our veterans and deal with their health care challenges. We must demand that our own states utilize the dollars being sent back to them to be used appropriately to provide “the best bang for the buck,” for the American taxpayer who provided it. Those dollars are not created by the government, but instead sent to Washington by you, the taxpayer.

Although the 2022 elections did not provide the type of results some were looking for, they should have provided the American taxpayer with a “wake-up call” regarding their abject failures regarding the work product they are returning to the American people. They would be quickly dismissed should they have been working in the private sector. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the citizens of this country want results, not fancy slogans or excuses. We want a return on our investment, or it will be them living under the bridges in L.A. and New York. We want less party politics and more results regarding the challenges facing our nation and its citizens.

The time has also come to end those programs aimed at buying votes with handouts and public assistance. This was done for one reason and one reason only. Those programs were developed to align voters to one political party for their harvesting of votes.

No one should be opposed to programs which lift our citizens up during a time of need should they temporarily require a helping hand with training, educational assistance or short-term disability needs. Instead these programs strip the pride from a person. They have unfortunately been misused for nefarious purposes and have trapped citizens in a government system for their votes at the cost of their pride and dignity.

The time has come to put an end to these terrible games being played at the cost of our citizens and their quality of life. We are better than that and we must break this terrible cycle, otherwise we will be forever trapped within it. Only we are capable of making that happen by coming together, not under any labels, but without fear of doing what is right and speaking the truth and working together for the betterment of our citizens.