BradHoffmann.com

Politics – Presidential Elections – Campaigns – It’s all out of whack. I stumbled upon the USA Today article reporting the DNC and Obama campaign have amassed a $240 million dollar stockpile to fuel his re-election campaign. Did you catch that – $240 million dollars! Really?!? We live in a nation with a damaged credit score because of too much debt. Today our elected leaders are preparing to raise the debt ceiling again – another example of financial malfeasance. In our nation of opportunity, one-in-four children will go to bed hungry tonight. Families will sleep in a space unpowered by electricity or without oil to fuel the furnace. Lenders repossessed over 65,000 properties alone in October 2011. Unemployment rates and jobless benefit claims are staggering. Approximately 50,000 people annually are trafficked into or transited through America as slaves (sex, domestics, garment, and agricultural). As many as 2.8 million children live on the streets in America. While your reading this post, homeless shelters are turning away clients for a bed tonight – too many needs and not enough space. I can go on and on regarding the social injustice and societal ills facing our nation.

I’m ashamed we can gather stockpiles of cash to play politics – making mockery of real America – and we can’t learn to control our spending or even begin the process of investing in people. Has the power hunger elitist elected lost all sense of sanity and morality? Will someone please check the magnet on this country’s moral compass? If I were packing meals for the hungry with that money, I could feed nearly a billion people. We could shelter thousands and thousands. We could create private sector jobs initiatives to put America back to work. We could truly make America a better place to live by making a difference. But instead, others play politics as this nation slithers ever so close to the brink of collapse – both morally and financially.

To be fair, I don’t know what the GOP or its candidates have raised. I can only assume its total dollar figure is similarly offensive. In the last presidential election, between the front runner candidates more than a billion dollars was raised and spent. In all actuality, the DNC and Obama campaign out raised and spent the GOP and McCain camp more than two-to-one. Something is definitely wrong here – fundamentally, ethically, and morally. We need a return to sanity, to civility, to social consciousness, and to social responsibility. It’s irresponsible for our candidates to frivolously exhaust enormous resources while the nation’s needs go unaddressed and unmet. Will we ever have election and financing reform? Will we ever have a candidate who’ll cry foul and awaken a true moral consciousness in our nation? I can only hope!

Here’s my suggestion: I say in the future let’s give every qualified candidate $1000, a Flip camcorder, an iPhone with unlimited data and texting, a YouTube account, Facebook account, free blog space, and a Twitter account. Now, may the best man or woman win! Just a thought!