Last night’s Presidential debate started well but quickly turned into a scrappy in your face confrontation between both candidates.  I enjoy the debates and look forward to them.  You’re thinking, “I need to get our more.”  Perhaps but last night’s debate was uncomfortable!  This was a town-hall debate with undecided voters sitting within a few feet of them.  Why debate like the voters weren’t there?

Overall I didn’t hear the plans of how they are going to accomplish their goals and keep their promises.  Nor, why we should trust them to use the executive power we delegate to them as a national stewardship.

A few morning after observations that have stuck with me.

Mitt Romney went over his five point plan quickly.  Nothing new here.

1. Energy Independence
2. Free and fair trade (He explained why it is important to label China a currency manipulator.  He also said he wants to increase trade with the Central and South Americas.)
3. Improve educational opportunities and skill resets
4. Reduce the deficit and size of government bureaucracy
5. Small Business

The President told us what promises he had made and kept.  He also took responsibility for those that he hadn’t been able to keep, but reminded us it wasn’t for a lack of personal effort.  He hasn’t given an adequate explanation for why he hasn’t had an approved budget when the Democrats had a super majority for the first two years of his administration.  The deficit is a big deal!  Bigger than the health care plan!

The President emphasized job creation, taxing the rich to reduce the deficit, clean energy for job creation, education and jobs for young adults.

Romney could have had the President on the ropes, especially with Biden’s comments last week about terrorism and funding for our embassies.  He fumbled badly with the Benghazi terrorist attack.  He could have simply pointed out that the President and his administration continued to blame the attack and the murder of our diplomats on a video, that prior to the attack had only a tiny few views.  Obama’s speech in the Rose Garden on 9/12 did not declare that Benghazi was a terrorist attack.  I think the President and Moderator Candy Crowley misspoke here.  She appeared to correct herself by saying both men were right.  Really!

I’m a conservationist, not an environmentalist.  I support energy independence, sensible consumption of energy and developing our natural resources here at home and in North America.  With the concerns over the environment by Democrats and Republicans, both men surprised me with their enthusiasm for coal last night.  I’ve been privileged to speak throughout coal country and met miners and coal mine owners.  The majority of men I met were men of faith and worked together.  Some of the miners I met with in other venues were not professing Christians but were hard working men that I enjoyed being with.  They were good teachers about their work, the mines and coal’s benefits and costs. We need coal but there are challenges the coal country present to us.  China and other developing nations will be happy to buy our coal.  But there clouds of poison will simply float over our oceans and neighbors including the U.S.  Americans need to understand the costs and consequences of this benefit we’ve been blessed with.  It doesn’t help to have scary or Pleasant-ville ads.

Within my sight this morning is a coal burning electric plant and a few miles away a nuclear plant.  How do we clean coal?  Will we be able to clean it and keep electricity affordable? Persuade the senior citizens I spoke with yesterday that you are going to produce clean energy without poisoning the water, killing the soil and polluting the atmosphere for our children, grandchildren and international neighbors.  Houses, health care and jobs won’t matter if we fail to steward the very gifts God gave us to produce food and live in!

I’m sure that a lot of people were happy with the Governor’s statement to cease taxing dividends on our stocks.  I wasn’t.  Let’s be fair, we have a deficit to reduce before we pass this immoral debt to our children.  We have a national infrastructure to be rebuilt.  My bank was the victim of a cyber attack probably from Iran just recently.  What are we doing to protect ourselves from cyber warfare?  Where will the revenue come from if?  Thank you for telling us finally some of the deductions you are thinking about.  A twenty-five thousand dollar bucket?  Okay. That’s a start for seeing how you can increase revenue by lowering deductions.  But come on it’s going to take more than that to pay off our debt.

Mr. President there aren’t enough rich people for you to tax to eliminate our deficit and pay for your programs.  Where is a bi-partisan budget plan?  Why create the Bowles Simpson Commission and then basically ignore it?

Finally for this post, right to life and marriage makes some of us single issue voters.  People can change their minds.  Governor Romney should be clear about how and what he will do with the positions he has change of heart about.  He has made some bold statements in the past, I’d like to hear more than I’ve changed my mind, I’m pro-life now.

Politically Charged Up Today!