{"id":55546,"date":"2023-07-31T20:31:28","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T20:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=55546"},"modified":"2023-07-31T20:31:28","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T20:31:28","slug":"presidential-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=55546","title":{"rendered":"Keeping record intact"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>My presidential voting record would look to the casual observer as a study in partisanship.<\/p>\n<p>It dates back to 1972, the year I cast my first vote for president. I had been home from the Vietnam War for just a brief period. I was newly married and my first son was about to arrive in January of the following year.<\/p>\n<p>I cast my first ballot for Democratic Party presidential nominee Sen. George McGovern. I was one of the &#8220;few and the proud&#8221; to do so, as McGovern got trampled by President Nixon that year, losing 49 states to the man who himself would resign from office in disgrace.<\/p>\n<p>That all said, I want to stipulate two key points: I have voted Democratic every four years since; I intend to do so in 2024. But I do not judge candidates solely on the basis of their party affiliation. I consider myself a policy guy.<\/p>\n<p>I have held my breath a time or two while casting votes for POTUS. I did so in 1976, considering whether to return President Ford to office for a full term after Nixon quit; I opted instead for that upstart former Georgia governor, Jimmy Carter. I admit to breathing deeply in 1992 before voting for Bill Clinton. I truly admired President George H.W. Bush, as I consider him to be the most qualified man ever to hold the office.<\/p>\n<p>However, it is true that even though the policies espoused by Democrats are more in line with my own &#8220;good government progressive&#8221; view of the world, I remain an American patriot with an open mind. Indeed, the older I get the more open my mind becomes.<\/p>\n<p>The qualities of the current crop of Republicans seeking their party&#8217;s nomination this time, though, all but eliminate damn near all of them. There are too many conspiracy theorists among them. I hate conspiracies and despise those who foment them. The state of the nation, moreover, is far better than the GOP would have us believe.<\/p>\n<p>Who&#8217;s been in charge of our national well-being? The Democratic incumbent, Joe Biden.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s about policy, man. Therefore, barring some cataclysm between now and Election Day, President Biden is my man.<\/p>\n<p>Are we clear? Good!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"mailto:johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com\">johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My presidential voting record would look to the casual observer as a study in partisanship. It dates back to 1972, the year I cast my first vote for president. I had been home from the Vietnam War for just a brief period. I was newly married and my first son was about to arrive in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=55546\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Keeping record intact<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1337,1941,3716],"class_list":["post-55546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-news","tag-democratic-party","tag-gop","tag-presidential-elections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55547,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55546\/revisions\/55547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}