Politics and Turning 18 During a Voting Year, Yikes!

The GOP presidential race. Oh. My. Gosh. I am in AP Government and Politics this year and for the class, I have been watching the GOP presidential race for the first time in my life and all I can say is wow. Just a little background, I turn 18 this year (no creepers, I’m not telling you the exact date so don’t ask) and that means I’m going to be voting in the Presidential election.

The only problem? I knew nothing, absolutely nothing but the pure basics of politics, and that kinda scared me. I mean, how could I know who to vote for if I don’t know anything? So I enrolled in AP Gov-Pol in hopes of learning something before November came. And boy am I glad I did. So now I’ve been following the race and learning what they stand for. Now I am not Republican. I am more on the Democrat/moderate side of the spectrum.

Just a spoiler alert, hard-core Republicans, this may offend you, though that is not at all what I’m trying to do. I’m only voicing my opinion on this.

Anyway, all I can say is Obama is going to win the election solely because there is no good Republican nominee. I mean seriously, Gingrich is a HUGE hypocrite, Santorum is a seriously hard-core Republican, Paul is just… not even considered a challenge anymore, and Romney is good but still a little too Republican to win everybody over.

Gingrich annoys me, like seriously annoys me. He recently won the South Carolina primary because at the debate he talked about family values and when the moderator asked him about how in 1999 he asked his now ex-wife for an open marriage, he responded with something like “How dare you ask such a question at a presidential debate” and the crowd went wild. Like, are you kidding me!? He completely evaded the question but people still loved him even though he has cheated on all his wives.

Herman Cain has a scandal released about him having an affair and he’s out of the race. It’s like, seriously? It’s ridiculous. And Santorum, he is really asking for the women of America to beat him up. I saw a video of him being interviewed by Piers Morgan about his belief on abortion and it disgusted me. First, let me say, men have no right deciding or even talking about abortion because they can’t get pregnant anyway!

So in the video, Santorum says that even though the baby was conceived in a horrible way, it’s still a gift from God and woman should “make the best of a bad situation” and have the baby and care for it and stuff. I kid you not, he actually said that. I was flabbergasted. Is he kidding?! A rape is a horrible and traumatic experience and to force a woman to carry around a reminder of that for NINE MONTHS is just plain cruel. I hate how men are the ones deciding whether abortion should be legal or not.

Of course if you are a woman and are pro-life, good for you. I’m just saying that men should have absolutely nothing to do with this debate because it doesn’t affect them ONE BIT! Not one bit! Another thing, Santorum brought up that the baby is a gift from God, but religion has absolutely no place in politics. You know why? Because the First Amendment protects the freedom of religion and that means it’s completely unconstitutional to force your religion on someone and the abortion debate, the gay marriage debate, those are religion brought right into the middle of politics. It’s so stupid. People who say that abortion or gay marriage should be illegal because God is against it are being unconstitutional and therefore their arguments are invalid. So there. Case in point. Debates closed. Okay, I’m done.