In this season of personal and media endorsement, often by well intentioned people and institutions with real or imagined influence, I have tried to consider what a similar endorsement by an average American might look like if it were to be headlined on the editorial page of a major newspaper.
An Endorsement by a Common Man
“ These are the times that try men’s souls.” Words of history written 235 years ago by Thomas Paine to rally an America that had lost its spirit and had become depressed by a series of defeats that threatened a national dream yet unseen by most. The Crisis Papers rallied Americans to a cause greater than themselves and sought to set aside those “ sunshine patriots “ who are found only when difficulties are absent and when their own personal benefit exceeds that of the nation.
Now, we are at another crisis point in our nation’s history. The last thirty years have seen a steady descent by America into a black pit of debt, despair, selfishness, self- interest, personal immorality, absent ethics and an increasing inability to dream great dreams and set great tasks that can be achieved. America has lost its way, led by a succession of elected representatives remarkable only in their similarity to one another and the absence of their achievements. These “ Pied Pipers” of mediocrity have led, and we have followed, to a point of national despair.
The crisis is at hand. This nation can not continue to elect leaders so enmeshed in the Washington Club and their own personal fortunes that there will be no visible difference, regardless of the outcome of the national election. Leaders must be able to lead Democrats and Republicans and Independents. We must be done with finger pointing and the great litmus tests of ideological purity. We need steel in Washington, not pure, unadulterated...tin.
How exactly have we come to this stage in our national existence ? As another great American wrote, “Let facts be submitted to a candid world.”
America has spent itself into a debt so immense it can never realistically be repaid absent financial leadership in Washington and personal sacrifice at home. We have been agents in our personal and national indebtedness, following the siren song of the money lenders enriching themselves in the present by draining the soundness of the future.
America has lost its ability to dream of great achievement and great accomplishment. We are reduced to a national focus on trite and pithy items by a national media focused on short term profit and obsessed with daily fleeting sensationalism.
America has allowed the dilution of its national values like religion, education, ethics and laws. It has allowed the high standards of its founders to be drowned in a pool of self pity where a concern for low achievers has replaced the esteem for high achievers, where the average C has now become the Gold standard , replacing yesterday’s A.
America has lost its ability to lead itself and has become dependent upon a kaleidoscope of international economic and political players from China to Europe to the Middle East whose national interests are decidedly different from our own and whose achievement often is at our expense
America has lost its image of global leadership. No one will follow one who is lost. The world is adrift in an average sea without a pilot, without a financial chart and without a moral compass. There are no bright mornings and brilliant sunsets......only a dull grey colorless patina of bland.
Americans increasingly disdain the effort to find great leaders and instead rely on an often biased media to choose one for us.
Americans have abrogated the challenge of selecting national leaders of high accomplishment, superior ethics, unchallenged personal morality, great intelligence and broad vision.
In this election, there is one candidate who stands apart from the dull patina of the last thirty years . We have an opportunity to select an exception to the rule of mediocrity. We can alter our destiny. We can plot a new course. We can elect......
A person of great intelligence and deep insight
A person of great personal morality
A person of strong personal and family values
A person of great achievement in the American environment, in private business as well as public government
A person with broad and deep experience in the American economy, not the veneer that is often the signature of a political career, who can fashion an economic plan that corrects the nation’s downward spiral and , equally important, can lead the Congress to pass such a plan without the infantile political acrimony of the past.
A person of profound and deep patriotism who can sing the national anthem while others pose for camera angles
A person far removed from the self- enrichment and personal focus that is Washington today and equally unassociated with the cloying and self- promoting cadre of sham national leadership
A person with real American values who can lead a world desperate for leadership, in a time of global political and economic chaos.
A person who does not apologize for America’s past, but challenges all of us to create a new American tomorrow.
We can elect a person to lead the world in the 21st century........not the 19th
We can elect Mitt Romney............and I thoughtfully and enthusiastically endorse him for the office of President of the United States
CraigS
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