We're Not Electing a Messiah
By R. Clayton StrangNo one is perfect. No one. Not a single one of us has led a completely blameless life. We've all said something that we wish we hadn't. We've all lied, cheated, or stolen. We've all done or said hurtful things. Imperfection is a reality of the human condition. We know and accept that we are flawed. We realize that our parents, brothers, sisters, friends, and neighbors are flawed. If we accept this as true, why do we expect more from our potential elected leaders?
Every day, you can turn on the cable news, or go to your favorite news or blog sites, and hear all about the Republican presidential candidates and how imperfect they are. We all know about the sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain. Most agree that these charges have probably been completely fabricated. That being the case, we are then subjected to constant criticism of his campaign's handling of these allegations. Now we get to hear all about his flubbing of a question on Libya. The mainstream media has force-fed us clips of Rick Perry having a bit of a brain freeze during a debate. We know all about Newt Gingrich's past marital problems. He appeared in an ad with Nancy Pelosi, and he's criticized Congressman Paul Ryan. We hear these attacks daily from both sides of the aisle. These stories are designed to convince us of something that we should already know: no one is perfect!
The media is setting us up. They're lying to us. The lie is this: we must have a perfect candidate to defeat Barack Obama in 2012. Conservatives more and more seem to buy into the lie. They buy into it and get discouraged. They don't see any of our candidates as perfect, and they see Barack Obama's re-election as inevitable. If the progressives can get enough of us to believe that the defeat of conservatism in 2012 is a foregone conclusion, they can keep us home on November 6. What many American conservatives need is a good, cold splash of reality.
America has a president who was presented to us as perfect. We were told that with his election, the world would respect and love American again. We were told that we would remember even his nomination as the day when "the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." We haven't heard from any of his past girlfriends, classmates, teachers, or co-workers who might tell us about his many flaws. If they have come forward, we've never heard about it. Why? Because we're supposed to believe that Barack Obama is perfect. He is everything that we should want to be. He and he alone can save us. Of course, now we know that none of that is true. Some of us have been saying it for years as Americans raced to follow this "perfect" man. Millions of our fellow citizens swallowed that narrative hook, line, and sinker, and look at the state of our Republic now.
Perfection for mankind in this life is unattainable, and thus is of no value to us. Of course, we cannot have as our nominee someone who is or has been an adulterer, an abuser, a liar, or a racist. Such a person, should any proof of such things be demonstrable, would have such a huge lack of character that he or she would be thoroughly undeserving of the office of president of the United States.
We don't need a new messiah. We don't need perfection. We need vision. We need substance. We need character. These traits are the building blocks of our Great Republic, and anyone wishing to be the Republican nominee for president must possess them in great quantities. We don't need another savior; we simply want a president.
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