I have yet to even decide if I’ll vote dem or republican this next election; I’m waiting to see what my options are. However, I’m narrowing down who I will not vote for. #1 on that list is Rick Perry. Allow me some pre-debate propaganda.
1. I care very little that he feels so strongly that young girls should be vaccinated against cancer an STD. I hear both sides of that debate and I do not expect that my presidential candidate needs to agree with me (And I’ll go Ron Paul on this one – it’s not for the government to decide!). However, it’s more worrisome that he’s accepting such large campaign donations from Merck, the maker of the primary drug used to vaccinate. I know that a contributor’s interests go higher on a politician’s priority list, but I don’t like decisions affecting my daughters’ health to be made based upon someone’s deep pocketbooks any more than when my doctors’ are influenced in the same way. (Is anti-big business democrat or republican? Because I’m that).
2. I don’t care as much that he’s “for” the death penalty as much as I’m offended by his crass overconfidence. His 100% positive attitude that his state could not have possibly executed an innocent man is downright scary. He needs to allow for the imperfections of the system. This attitude is way too over-confident and lacks the humility necessary to deal with repercussions of making these [correct use of literal] life-and-death decisions. If you’re standing strong on such an issue, you need to be prepared to fix imperfections, not pretend that they’re not there.
3. He’s the Evangelical Club card holder. I know Bachman also has platinum status (but rest assured, there’s too large a group of conservatives who don’t feel that women should be in leadership… I went to one of those churches a few weeks ago), but Perry was brought in by a consortium of leaders of Christian organizations to be “grilled” on his stance on both policy and social issues (apparently one participant really grilled him on the vaccine thing; I tried to find a source on this, but couldn’t. I heard it on K-Love, if that provides any background understanding). Whether or not he’s a conservative evangelical isn’t my concern; it’s the groupthink mentality. I remember talking with friends when GW was elected and essentially being told that voting for the W was the Christian Thing To Do. In my gut, I didn’t like him. And 8 years later, I was right. So, in typical style, I react by being adverse to something that I wasn’t adverse to previously (all of history is a reaction to a reaction, right?). Poor Perry will bear the brunt of this as I take a stand and he won’t get my vote out of principle.
Husband and I oft debate about religion and politics. I’m a firm believer that you can hardly separate the 2 (we’ve been trying from the beginning of time with little luck. Our ideas of God and law are simply too intertwined). And, I would argue, they ought to be. Faith should guide our ideals of right and wrong and the priorities of our lives. But I cannot think that a singular candidate holds a corner of the market or God’s singular endorsement.
So, those are my pre-debate thoughts. We’ll see what comes of the whole debacle later tonight.