Undecided

Yes, STILL.  Five days away from THE MOST IMPORTANT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF YOUR LIFETIME! I remain undecided between Mitt Romney and President Obama.  And I finally realized why.

I am a Christian, and I believe in love, compassion and helping others, especially "the least of these"--those on the fringes/at the bottom of society.  People who cannot, or don't know how to, help themselves.  Heck, look at my students.  I've been at SCORE for 9 years, and my students are the very definition.  I believe that love was and is Jesus' main lesson for us. 

But.

I am also a very independent person, a historian and a student of government.  I strongly believe in personal responsibility, self-sufficience and hard work.  I believe that states should maintain much power, and that our current federal government is much too large and wasteful.  The necessary and proper clause has been used to strip the states of almost all of their power over the last hundred years, and I don't think that's what the Founders intended.  Federalism means that the states have to have power, too!  And not just in name only.  Overly large federal governments always manage to collapse on themselves, and that does not bode well for us.

You could probably call me a "compassionate conservative."  Whatever happened to this idea, anyway?

These are the major facets of who I am, and they are contradictory.

President Obama is much more compassionate toward people who are hurting--the unemployed, the ill--and even though I definitely don't agree with everything he's done, I can see compassion at work in some of what he's done the last four years.

However, it seems that Obama's compassion comes with a blank check for any kind of sinful behavior.  I don't believe that love means allowing everyone to do anything they want.  That's called anarchy, people!  Jesus loved everyone unconditionally, but He did not excuse sin.  Every good parent knows that the unconditional love we feel for our children does not mean that we allow them to do anything they want:  they crave boundaries, even though they may not know it, and when we set boundaries, we show love.

Mitt Romney is much more independent, a believer in small government and personal responsibility.  Living within your means is an extremely important part of maintaining independence, and I think Romney can get the federal government under control (even though I don't agree with all of his proposals).

However, Romney's independence comes at the cost of compassion.  Sure, he can vow to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something else--but will the "replace" part ever happen?  What about the people who can now get insurance and healthcare as a direct result of that law?  I don't totally support the law--I disagree with the Supreme Court about the federal government's right to require citizens to purchase health insurance--but my compassionate side can certainly see the benefits of the most popular parts of the law, and putting something in place to replace it could take years, and very likely cost lives.

Is Romney compassionate? I believe he is, even though I'm not a fan of Mormonism, and we rarely hear about his softer side.  But there have been some mentions of it, and I believe he sees direct assistance as I do:  that it is a responsibility of individuals, churches, charities, even local and state governments--but not of the federal government.

I won't even get into the details of foreign policy, but in general, I've been surprised by many of President Obama's moves in this arena, and generally supportive of his choices.  Frankly, a Mitt Romney presidency scares me in regard to foreign policy.  He seems too belligerent, and I fear where that could lead us.

I DESPISE both sides' fearmongering.  Conservatives, President Obama is NOT the anti-Christ.  Deal with it.  Liberals, Mitt Romney does NOT hate women and anyone not worth $250 million.  Get over it.


Never in my life have I voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.  Of course, this is only my 4th presidential election, but still.  The fact that I am even considering voting for Obama now is a pretty big deal.

For a while, I was leaning toward Obama pretty hard.  In the last week or so, I've shifted more toward Romney.

But I remain undecided, and I probably will until they hand me the ballot on Tuesday.