Where's Honest Abe When We Need Him?

If, like me, you live in Pennsylvania, you can't go anywhere without being bombarded by political ads, billboards, and sound bites. Frankly, I'm getting a little sick of it. Obama, Hilary and their handlers have descended on our state and are now trying desperately to identify with us common folk. So we've got Hilary downing shots in one part of the state and Obama bowling an embarrassing 30+ score. Who bowls a 30? Obviously someone who's never lifted a bowling ball before in his life. He should have settled for the stale popcorn and cheered on the regular bowlers from the sidelines. As far as Hilary and the "spirits", I'm not sure what she was drinking but she apparently took to it like a duck to water, which I'm thinking might not be a good thing.

Then we've got the "he said, she said" tiff going on. For Pete's sake, enough already! If I have to keep on listening to charges of "false memories" or "elitist comments", I just might turn bitter and what will I do then? I don't own a gun so I can't turn to that for comfort. That means I can only turn to my religion. Oh wait! I ALREADY turn to my faith for direction and solace. Gee, I must be from a small town in Pennsylvania. I mean, it can't be because I have managed to weave my spiritual beliefs into the structure of my life, could it?

I had high hopes for the Compassion Forum hosted by Messiah College. In fact, I urged our Sunday School class to watch it last Sunday. Some in our class expressed their cynicism that it would all be just canned rhetoric. I urged them to give it a chance. There were going to be important topics discussed that usually get left out of the normal campaign hot buttons. "Besides", I told them, "Give a person long enough and what is really in their heart will find its way out of their mouth." Not terribly eloquent but something I truly believe. Unfortunately, the forum turned out to be mostly very superficial questions with the candidates' answers sounding like something they'd memorized out of a catechism book. With all their talk of "Grace" and the "Holy Spirit", I sure didn't sense much of the "Spirit-led" in what they said.

And then there's John McCain. He hasn't had to do much of anything lately except sit back and enjoy watching the in-fighting amongst the Democrats. If the two Democratic hopefuls keep this up, they can pretty much hand over the presidency to McCain on a silver platter. And herein lies my dilemma. I've almost always been a Republican. The only time I ever voted Democrat for a president was way back in my college days when I voted for Jimmy Carter in an act of young rebellion. We all know how that turned out. It was like throwing one peanut (no offense to peanut farmers) at a herd of thundering elephants. He got flattened by the Washington power players.

I could vote for Hilary but that would mean having her husband back in the White House and on moral values, I just can't do it. I could vote for Obama. Actually, I considered it at one point. But somehow his legislative actions just don't jive with his eloquent words. I can't seem to get past that. I admire McCain for how he survived as a POW but I don't much care for his voting record. There isn't an independent candidate that I want to vote for so where does that leave me? Quite honestly, it leaves me wishing that good old Abe Lincoln was here running for president again. We need a quiet, humble leader ready to make the right decisions, even when they aren't popular. We need someone who can try to reunite our country and right our economy after the ravages of war and greed. We need someone who isn't going to spend us into oblivion using money our country doesn't have. What we need is a hero and what we DON'T need is another long, drawn-out campaign to show us who that is.