Burning Bridges: The GOP Free - For - All

I had decided that this year I would remain neutral in the political race for the White House. Four years ago I was one of Barack Obama's biggest supporters. I felt it was my duty as an American citizen to help defeat John McCain and Sarah Palin. I was totally behind President Obama and I had nothing but high hopes for his administration. Like so many of my fellow Americans, I have been bitterly disappointed by many aspects of his performance as our president. So much so that until the last few months I have been undecided about whether he would get my vote again, or not.

The behavior of the Republican candidates for president this year has all but made up my mind for me. I have a hard time imagining myself voting for anyone representing the Republican party because they stand for almost everything I do not. I cannot imagine an America where we could regress to a time where people are no longer equal. I don't support any religious agenda and I can't accept any lawmakers who believe their religious beliefs give them the right to force them on everyone else. I feel that we are now into the 21st Century and it's time for America to catch up with most of the rest of the world in terms of equality. The Republicans and their conservative stances display a willingness to do the opposite of what I see as The American Dream.

Though, as the race to see who gets the Republican nomination goes on, I am beginning to believe that they are their own worst enemy. There are four frontrunners for the GOP nomination and they are sabotaging not only themselves but their entire party by fighting over who's the most conservative and who best represents the GOP. Constantly tearing each other down detracts from the most important issues in this contest and I am not very impressed by anyone who loses focus on what our country needs in favor of committing character assassinations on one another.

Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul have about as much chance of getting the GOP nomination as I do, and yet they remain in the race because they are deluded in their assessments of the support behind them. Newt Gingrich, in my opinion, stands for almost everything the Republican party does not. He's on his third marriage, has openly admitted to adultery where his first two wives were concerned, and he tends to forget that he was forced to leave Congress in disgrace. Or maybe he just hopes everyone else will forget it. Ron Paul, on the other hand, seems to only be keeping his campaign alive to irritate Mitt Romney. He knows he won't get his party's nod to run against Obama. I can't understand why he is so intent on undermining the GOP. I wonder if he knows the answer himself.

Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are the only potential nominees the Republicans can offer up. Of the two, the former will almost certainly get the nomination. Romney is the only one who seems to have shifted his focus onto the issues facing the US right now. Santorum is completely overwhelmed by the need to slander Romney in any way he can. Whenever he does talk about the problems average Americans are facing today he flubs his words and comes off contradicting himself more often than not. His religious views are another mark against him because he is of the opinion that he can use them against anyone who believes differently than he does himself, and he's willing to say anything he thinks his fellow Republicans want to hear. He is his own biggest opponent.

All this fighting over who's the best Republican and who is the most conservative is serving to do nothing more than undermine whatever chances the GOP has to unseat Barack Obama in November. The contenders for the nomination are making fools of themselves on a global stage by attacking one another over and over again. People want to hear what they can do to make life better and sadly their behavior isn't demonstrating very much ability for any of them to make any difference whatsoever,

Today is Super  Tuesday and I fully believe that when it's over Romney will have more delegates to his credit than his counterparts will ever be able to challenge. If it is indeed Romney who goes up against Obama in November I have no doubt that the President will be reelected. Even though Romney does seem to be talking about the real issues at stake, he is being undermined by those who are vying with him for the nomination. He's also much more moderate than most Republicans are as well. I don't think he'll end up with the support he's expecting from his own party.

The GOP has effectively sunk its own ship. In a country where values and ideals are changing, the Republican lean toward trying to preserve a vision of America that is no longer relevant to most of their countrymen is yet another nail in their coffin. What I find most curious about the entire debacle is that the candidates the Republican party is currently offering seem unable to grasp the real meaning of what their antics are doing to their credibility. Only Romney seems to have an inkling of what's going on but he can't rise above it because his opponents won't let him.

This GOP free for all is proving to Americans as a whole that the Republican party is increasingly irrelevant in today's world. As much as I consider myself independent when it comes to political choices and affiliations, I would find it practically impossible to support a Republican candidate for president when evaluating the present state of their affairs. The GOP is burning bridges within itself even more effectively than they're burning them with the rest of the country.

And polls across the country are bearing out the fact that I am far from alone in this assessment.