This is a long post, so I'll apologize in advance.

Perhaps we are all pointing at the wrong factors in deciding who will occupy the most powerful position on earth.

We have some folks who are "single issue" voters. They vote for whoever agrees with them on their most burning issue.

We have an analogue to that...special interests...not really much difference except the media would have you believe that "special interest groups" are "bad." Not sure what qualifies you to be in either category.

Then we have the philosophical voters of all types (Government Responsible for Everything, Government Responsible for Nothing & all the positions in-between.

What I'm not seeing is Character & Vision.

My personal method to choose my candidate is to start with basic qualifications:

Legal- Natural Born US Citizen over 35/36?-system takes care of that for me...no real decision here.

Character: Probably the single most important. Reason, Good Character will try to do what is right regardless of personal consequences. Bad character will tell you what you want to hear, but no promises on actual execution.

Experience: Best is experience in two factors, Executive and Holding a Real Job.

Executive Examples: Governor, Mayor, CEO, Military Officer etc. Senate or House don't count

Real Job: Business Owner, Assembly line worker, firefighter, military, police, doctor, electrician etc. Lawyers & Accountants don't count...elected Representatives don't count & Beauracrats don't count.

Once I screen out the unqualified...then I rank order the remainder, THEN I start looking at the long-term vision. Vision being of such character that you are willing to institute something that may cause you great pain while getting it off the ground and that may never even come to fruition in your lifetime...having the cojones to buck the polls. Examples of Vision:

Jefferson & the Westward Expansion

Roosevelt & the New Deal

Eisenhower & the Interstate System

Kennedy & the Space Program

Based on these criteria, the most qualified candidates are already out of the race...Huckabee, Romney etc (Governors/Executive Experience/leadership)

If I had to rank the remainder still in:

3. Clinton: Bad Character (Lies) ; No Experience (Senate doesn't Count); Has vision (I Just don't care for it).

2. Obama, Unknown Character (Wright issue may be the tip of the iceberg...or just a bunch of BS); No Experience (Again Senate Doesn't Count)

1. McCain, Awesome Character (Based purely on my belief that undergoing a beating at the hands of our enemy for several years and still keeping the faith...nothing more for me to say); Experience: Credit for being being a Military officer during wartime (small credit & NO Credit for Senate time); Vision: Unknown.

This is just a method I use...Based on this, I see no real "stellar" performers.

Feel free to launch rockets now. :-)

Regards,

Mike