Remaining: 961

By: Tom Butts

That number could be looked at a few ways; it could be seen as how many more remaining delegates there are in the Republican Primary.  It could also be seen as a countdown clock as to how much more time we have until we see the “ugliest” Presidential Election in years.

It seems clear to me, as a Democrat, that we need to stick with the facts and tell the story about the day a new President was handed a load of crap from an overzealous war-monger who had no idea what he was doing with money, war, or diplomacy.

Sure, it’s fun for us to tease Mitt Romney (Mittens, as I like to call him).  Sure, not too many of us have had a renovation that includes “car elevators” or a price tag of $12M.  We enjoy seeing Anne Romney talk about how she did work, when in reality it wasn’t whether being a mother is a hard job (we can all say “yes” to that), it was about Mittens talking about her like she was one of his economic advisors.

When I get involved in political conversations (usually heated if the mix includes the GOP) I do a lot of listening at first.  People say, “look at gas prices, the President made these prices go up…”.  I simply reply, “you’re probably right; he’s also taken the DOW from 7000 to 13000”.  Of course, after that is mentioned, I get told that one person does NOT have influence on the DOW/NASDAQ.  So let’s be clear…we need to decide, is he the ALL POWERFUL OZ or not?  I’m guessing he’s not.  There are many factors in our world economies that are influencers in what’s happening -mainly China, Brazil, and India.

What I can say is that unemployment has dropped since January ’09.  The DOW has gone up since January ’09.  As a recruiter (that’s what I do for my day job) I’m finding it much harder to find great candidates.

To make it through the summer, two things are mandatory:

1. Owning a TiVo or DVR (to skip through the billions of dollars in advertising spent by both sides).

2. Listening to facts, taking a snapshot of pre and post Obama and where we are.  As a gay man, I have more rights, my       401(k) is looking good again and, as you can guess, I’m a supporter.