Barbara For President

Ok, it is official, Barbara Lavorato has agreed to run for president of the United States. You may recall I mentioned that Barbara was my choice in a blog I wrote about a month ago. If all of you feel like I do that the two candidates nominated by the dominant parties have completely failed to impress then you may want to write in Barbara Lavorato as I plan in November. Now, you may feel you need to know a little bit more about Barbara so with her permission I am going to fill in some details. Today I saw Barbara and she is agreeing to run and has answered some of my questions regarding her background. The easiest way to learn about Barbara is to compare and contrast.

1. Like our two major candidates Barbara is a senior, she recently turned 72.
2. She is a strong supporter of the military but unlike the major candidates she actually has family in the military, her two beloved twin nephews who she would consider before placing them or their friends in harms way.
3. Barbara has worked her whole life, ironically she was a government employee working for the IRS. Even more ironic, she did not become one of the wealthiest people in our country by being paid for speeches. Perhaps even more ironic, she never used a personal email server for government work.
4. Like Trump she is skeptical of Obamacare, unlike Trump she would not throw it out. Unlike Clinton she would not expand it without paying for it and unlike Sanders she knows nothing is free.
5. Barbara doesn't care what happens in the bedroom and she really doesn't care who gets married to whom.
6. She thinks building a really big wall won't do really anything except make it harder to visit really nice places in Mexico. 
7. School isn't free, someone had to pay for it like she did. Her nephews joined the air force to pay for theirs.
8. Free trade isn't free, she likes her foreign built cell phone but is worried about bad deals.
9. Regarding deals, she always worked to make reasonable ones as an IRS investigator.
10. No bankruptcies
11. Actually worked with others, played well, had superiors and inferiors in the office and everyone got along.
12. Never made a corrupt land deal
13. No big inheritance and no spouse to stand on the shoulders of.
14. Really, really,really nice.
15. She cares about the environment, she's worried about global climate change, she knows that scientists know more about science than she does. And she's pretty convinced the planet is more than 5,000 years old.
16. She believes in the power of prayer when she's worried about someone she loves, she believes in the power of common sense when trying to develop a way to deal with climate change, world conflict and natural disasters.
17. Putin has neither endorsed nor critiqued her.
18. She is a strong supporter of Israel as an American ally and stabilizing force.
19. If I didn't mention it before, she's really really nice.
20. She must be really smart because she likes me.

A vote for Barbara is a vote for sanity. If you have the same level of discomfort I have about the complete lack of logic in Trump and morals and ethics in Clinton then like me you want to vote for somebody that doesn't turn your stomach.

So why vote for somebody who has essentially no chance of winning the election? I want to be able to look myself in the mirror and not feel that I am traitor to my beliefs. Face the facts, Clinton is almost sure to win. She has gotten to this position with a lot of cheating, manipulation and probably illegal activity. I certainly believe her behavior in the Whitewater scandal in the 90's was illegal. She may not be the first criminal elected to the highest office but I refuse to assist her.
A vote for Trump is not a vote against Clinton as much as it is a vote for an obnoxious, foul mouthed bully who lacks any political skills, and is mostly lacking in any substantial ideas. The few ideas he does have are either illogical, not doable, or might place us in a huge international conflict.

I know that in 20 years if my kids ask me who I voted for I don't want to feel like I chose the lesser of two awful choices. I would rather feel good that I found someone who is caring, and not controlled by big influential lobbyists or influenced by billions of dollars that they probably want to grow at my expense.

So a vote for Barbara is a vote to say something about our future. And that is "Dammit I'm not gonna take it anymore!" Yes, I know that slogan has been used before. But, it does express the fact that if the major political parties can't do better than this then they can forget about my vote. But I'm not going to stay home, I am going to vote for Barbara.

I warned Barbara today that  based upon early polling she is likely to get two or three write in votes in Santa Cruz and maybe one in Michigan if my mom can be convinced. If any of you want to join the Barbara for President campaign I'd love to know.

Heck you never know, we might get four votes in Santa Cruz.