I found this article dismal on so many levels (like all 3 definitions of dismal).
Do not suggest to me we have to adapt to and adhere to elements of somebody Else’s agenda for the common good when the aggregate expression of our vote is to advance our own agenda.
The idea stated is as horrible as Obama’s revenge comment.
http://www.debates.org/index.php?page=october-28-1980-debate-transcript
“Next Tuesday all of you will go to the polls, will stand there in the polling place and make a decision. I think when you make that decision, it might be well if you would ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago?
Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was? Do you feel that our security is as safe, that we’re as strong as we were four years ago?
And if you answer all of those questions yes, why then, I think your choice is very obvious as to whom you will vote for.
If you don’t agree, if you don’t think that this course that we’ve been on for the last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four, then I could suggest another choice that you have.
This country doesn’t have to be in the shape that it is in. We do not have to go on sharing in scarcity with the country getting worse off, with unemployment growing.
We talk about the unemployment lines. If all of the unemployed today were in a single line allowing two feet for each of them, that line would reach from New York City to Los Angeles, California.
All of this can be cured and all of it can be solved. .... I know that the economic program that I have proposed for this nation in the next few years can resolve many of the problems that trouble us today.....
I would like to have a crusade today, and I would like to lead that crusade with your help. And it would be one to take Government off the backs of the great people of this country, and turn you loose again to do those things that I know you can do so well, because you did them and made this country great. Thank you.” - Ronald Reagan, October 28, 1980