Hope for Change

Tonight is the second Presidential Debate.  R.M asked me who I was going to vote for last week. I'm fairly cynical about the Presidential vote - they both talk to the middle and you must guess how their "real" ideology will affect how the nation is governed.  My vote will be about which individual has vision and inspiration - which to me is leadership.

I think Obama won the last election with his "Hope and Change" theme.  This year's "Forward" is a weak follow on theme.  My theme is best described in the letter I sent to the Cincinnati Enquirer today:

You Can’t Buy Hope - You Can Vote for Change

You can't buy hope.  In fact, over-spending money will only create a vicious circle of addiction to superficial values with dire long-term consequences. 

Hope is best promoted by sacrifice - deferring today's want for the benefit of a future need.  My parents were the best example of this for me.  Raised during the depression, Mom and Dad realized that hope came in the package of hard work, responsibility, and caring for community.  They worked their way through college, spent below their means, and provided for their family in the hope that their values would be embraced by the next generation.  They passed on that hope to me - not through money or loans or spending what they didn't have - but through their values.

I agree that we are all in this together.  Hope is a collective asset.  It can't be bought or sold, traded or bartered. Hope is the inspiration an individual gets from their heroes (usually our parents) when they act responsibly and with care.  It builds with each generation, not in what we have, but in what we can be. The future can't be bought with borrowed funds, but it can be built with leadership and actions. Our careless governmental spending has proven that the more government spends, the more hope recedes.

Measure our hope today:  twenty-three million people have questionable hope for employment.  Twenty million young people fortunate enough to be employed have diminished hope for promotion and salary growth.  Thirty-nine million retirees have questionable hope about their financial security.  And some elderly are beginning to hope that the end is near.

Our nation was founded on hope – not by buying it, but by building it. But even with reckless, and divisive rhetoric, and poor leadership, Hope's flame cannot be extinguished. Hope can be rebuilt.  My parents built it - you can too.

"Forward?"  or Four Words    VOTE FOR A CHANGE!