Our Country Today, Not Our Country Tomorrow

(i know; i've been gone again. no more promises, just more work. anyway, i'm taking an class on oppinion writing, so i figured there's no better place for these than right here. so, even if i forget to update everything else, you'll continuously see these jammies, probably every week. kloveyoubye!)

This Tuesday, both political parties in our country announced the potential candidates for the 2008 presidential election. So far, four Democrats (Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, John Edwards, former senator from North Carolina, Tom Vilsack, former governor of Iowa, and Representative of Ohio) have officially announced their intentions to run, while only one Republican (Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas) did the same. Many more hopefuls for both parties (including powerhouses Barack Obama, Hilly Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain) have established “exploratory committees” designed to begin fundraising and raise interest for their potential campaigns.

America: we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

The past six years have been eventual and, in some cases, disappointing. After the 2004 elections, it began to seem as if Americans had grown tired of our current presidential regime. For months now, we’ve seen campaign analysts pushing Obama down our throats, while having theoretical debates about who is generating more strength in polls about an election that is twenty-one months away.

Shouldn’t be begin listening about today instead of planning for the distant tomorrow? Like it or not, the man is in charge for another three years. Americans have decided to ignore the developments of our campaign in Iraq, and simply ask, “Why are we still there?” It comes to no surprise that the biggest complaint about President Bush’s new strategy for the conflict is the increased amount of troops. We should be more concerned about “what for?,” instead of “why?”

President Bush’s State of The Union Address involved more of his domestic agenda than our foreign plans. These are issues we are tending to ignore nowadays. He has made big promises to truly change course on issues such as healthcare and education, topics that affect far more Americans than a war a hemisphere away.

It’s time to pay attention to our country’s reality in January 2007 before we begin dreaming about January 2009 with candidates that haven’t even committed to running for presidency.