2012 Election

This is an official blog entry for the YourLocalSecurity.com Blogging Scholarship. If selected, I'll receive $1000 towards my college expenses in 2012. This scholarship is sponsored by YourLocalSecurity.com

As Obama's presidency comes to a close, citizens across the nation, and around the world, will be carefully observing the 2012 electoral race. Many of the topics that we focused on during the last race will continue to come up, hot topics like health care, gay rights and abortion. We might see that others, like the war on terror, will simmer down, especially with the recent end to the war in Iraq.

The main topic of contention in the upcoming race, however, will have to do with economic policy. With our current national debt at 15 trillion (48,500 per person, according to Brillig.com) it's hard to imagine a bigger problem. But the debt itself isn't the root of it. The poison economic culture in the United States can be seen in a variety of different aspects of American life. The rising rates of obesity, the amount of waste we generate, the social and educational gaps that are apparent across towns and states, all these are products of an unstable economy.

History has shown that money affects culture more than we know. The fluctuating cost of gasoline causes families to reevaluate not just the cars they drive, but the routes they take, the schools they attend and much more. As the price of fresh foods spikes, so do the sales of cheaper meals from fast food restaurants. Poor diets, forced by low-incomes, lead to heart disease, diabetes and other health risks. When companies see drops in dollar signs, an obvious reaction can be to layoff employees, which presses even more stress on families and businesses nationwide. If we want a nation of healthy, happy individuals, we need to fix the economic standing of our entire country.

And so, we need a president who is going to lay out a plan. America needs organization. It needs a dynamic proposition that has one central target (economics), but a multitude of effects (health, environment, crime, family, business). The candidate who brings up convincing and clever solutions to strengthen our brittle economy will win. The individual who looks after the entire nation, and who does not divide us up by class nor region, will have the most success. The United States needs a president who does not see the colors red and blue, but rather someone who recognizes the interconnectedness of our nation. The best candidate will be the one who lays a groundwork for the future by proposing a plan that creates jobs, that invests in green technologies, that supports education, that brings back to life the prospects of an American dream, a dream we can achieve by getting off the couch, by getting our hands dirty, by working our own futures and by extension the future of our entire country. Our next president will realize the power of collaboration and cooperation,