Conviction

Last night, Rick Perry had a meltdown and forgot a line. The media loves to jump on those who make a verbal gaffe, or who make a mistake of some sort. We laugh, we watch late night TV doing their schtick and we never stop to think about how all this trivial frivolousness just makes us less of a nation able to solve its problems. The issue I want to address isn't the fact that a candidate committed a lapse in memory or a verbal gaffe, we all do, daily, but rather to try and explain them. It is because these subjects, or lines in a speech, or guidance from a political operative are intended to seize a moment, not a future. Rick Perry has no idea what cutting cabinet departments means to this nation, nor does he care, but cutting government sells well, so someone from his campaign tells him to say something, and he forgets it during a debate. It is because he has NO CONVICTION or deep rooted belief about this issue. Herman Cain really cannot explain his tax plan, it sounds catchy, but an in depth review shows it to be not significantly different than any of the other cool sounding plans. He, frankly doesn't understand it himself, so he tries to sell it by repeating it over and over, never explaining the obvious pitfalls of it, frankly because he doesn't care to. He has NO CONVICTION on the matter. Mitt Romney never met an opinion he didn't like. Whatever gets the extremist crowd riled up or whatever he can create as a counterpoint to the President, he says. He has changed his mind more times than the economists predict what will happen next year. He has NO CONVICTION. Candidates make mistakes in speech and in deed because they are human, but at the root cause of their mistakes is their obvious lack of any in depth or emotional commitment to what they say. So we all must choose our leaders not by the suaveness of their debate performance or the color of their tie or the slickness of their campaign. We must choose those who have conviction, dedication to cause and an understanding of their own words and their OWN ideas. We can accept nothing less. Where are you Americans for reason and truth?