CAMPAIGN GOALS

By Adriana Ramos

It’s difficult for any candidate of a Presidency, as powerful as United States, to keep his/her original campaign goals. When being interviewed, many questions are presented to them regarding various issues.  Original goals suddenly are lost or diluted in dialogues and debates.  TV and newspaper reporters keep us inform of the various interviews, conferences or events that the candidates attend. They even report on the faults of each candidate and they highlight moments showing when the candidates are ill prepared to response to the barrage of questions being imposed on them. As a voter it is hard to read between the lines, ignore all the noise and be able to determine if the candidate is running on a liberal or conservative platform, let alone try to track all of the promises and goals that each candidate declares that they will meet if they are elected.

Taking into account all of the current political noise that is in the voter’s mind, how will each candidate select a political platform which will allow them to get their message across and stand out above the crowd? What message or slogan each candidate needs that will allow him or her to project their position to the front of the pack? And, at the same time consolidate their followers/supporters?

When an economy, as ours, that shows signs of a possible slowdown, with the real estate market in crises in the majority of the large urban cities in the US, with the price of a gallon of gasoline hitting record highs, with population frustrated with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is easy to use immigration as an escape-goat to distract the deeper problems that the American society is currently living in.

“They are to blame”, many Candidates said, even my local media keep telling, T.V. stations, news papers, they are the ones who have diverge the economy in our Country….well…, let’s be realistic and think about it.

I don’t see any of the illegal immigrants seating in the Senate or Congress passing laws to keep sending millions of dollars to finance the war in Iraq, which coast our society billions of dollars (not to mention the lives of many of our brave soldiers). I don’t see them passing new medical bills that will alleviate the high cost of prescription drugs, which affect million of us, I don’t see them foreclosing on real estate loans that were not properly underwritten, or closing companies and outsourcing jobs to India or China. I do not see them lobbing for Oil companies to secure billions of dollars on tax subsidies.

However, I see them, yes, every day, as so many of us around this country. I see them picking the vines of our wine Industry; I see them as waiters, as yard workers, as factory workers, as construction workers repairing the infrastructure of this great nation. I see them as garbage collectors, as housekeepers, as nannies and maid. Yes I do see them, but not as a threat but as a vital part of the overall success of our economy. I question how many college graduates will loose the opportunity to work in their profession due to the position being filled by one of these illegal immigrants that come to our borders.

That’s an easy target to diverge the attention of what the Country needs. We need a Medical reform that will control the Drug Industry to allow us to have at low cost medicines, to supply at any drugstore medicines that my medical plan will include. We need the billions of dollars send to Iraq here at homes, we need to help Companies keep their products competitive enough to keep the job for thousand of families, we need help the Farms keep the cost of produce low so our weekly groceries won’t rise every day. We need to reform the budget for the Schools in the Country to keep the good teachers with our children’s and reform the Educational system to have a superior education at all levels, we need help to keep the small business running and try new alternatives of efficient technology, we need our home interest down to keep paying the monthly loan, instead of selling them. We need so much to activate our economy. And yes, we definitive need a Reform on Immigration.

So if our candidates lost track let’s do our job to remind them what we as individuals, as a community and as a Country not diverge the attention to the real issues.