Tell the campaigns to stick to the issues

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Please stop sending me e-mails extolling the illegality of or future damnation from a government led by a President Barack Obama.

I’ve had enough.

The latest one claimed that Obama was not a U.S. citizen because of a variety of reasons, including that Hawaii was not a state when he was born and that his mother was visiting Africa at the time of his birth and should have been at least age 21 for him to be a citizen.
Come on, people. Is this what public education has come to?
I asked others, including friends and politicians, how they deal with such ignorant communications.
They ignore them, for the most part, after reading a few lines to learn the gist of the message.
I was surprised, though, by the number of folks who say they don’t get the barrage I am blessed with.
I’m just lucky.
Why would our federal government or the Democratic Party allow anyone who doesn’t qualify get this far in the process without having searched through his background quite thoroughly?
But just to answer the person who saw fit to write to me about this problem of Obama’s citizenship, let me clarify a couple of things.
Hawaii was indeed a state when Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961, at Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu. Hawii became a state in 1959.
Anyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen. Period. The information concerning his mother’s age applies only if she lived outside of the U.S. when he was born, according to Snopes.com, a Web site I suggest everyone check out when you get one of the e-mails that are meant to inject fear into your hearts.
According to the 14th Amendment to our Constitution: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Obama was born in the U.S. He is a U.S. citizen. Let’s move on to the issues concerning the high costs of health care, the increasing profits the insatiable oil companies are making, and how we are going to educate our children.
Why are we focusing our efforts on this bovine feces?
If it is not the fear-mongering e-mails, then it is news accounts of disappointed supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton about the place she should have had on Obama’s ticket as a vice presidential nominee..
Every time I turn on the TV I see another campaign ad from Sen. John McCain rehashing what Clinton said during the primaries about Obama.
No doubt it was a hard-fought battle that drew millions of voters into the voting booths. But that campaign also gave McCain all the bullets he needed to fire away at Obama’s run for the presidency.
Why would anyone want that person on his or her ticket? It is a free-for-all for Republicans without her on the ticket, just by using her words. What would it have been like with her on the ticket, trying at every stop to eat those words?
She lost the primary. He has a right to pick his V.P. Let’s stick to the issues.
When are we going to bring the soldiers home from Iraq?
What can we do to bring down gasoline prices while not further damaging the environment?
What can be done to ensure our elderly, our young and all working Americans will feel financially secure when illness or accidents strike and medical services are needed?
I have a disabled friend who is so allergic to some medications that she has to pay upwards of $200 with Medicare for one of her monthly prescriptions.
Every so often, her body forms an immunity to that medication and a new one is required. Each time the prescriptions cost more and more.
It is unsettling to have to watch her dance through a maze of pharmaceutical manufacturers trying to find one that will help her pay for the prescriptions or for programs that will help.
Where is the help coming for her?
But instead of trying to decide which candidate will actually improve our lot, will have ideas good enough to turn this train we’re traveling on around, we’re talking about how McCain doesn’t know how many houses he owns or whether Obama’s mother secretly gave birth to him in Kenya.
We’ve got to start demanding more from our candidates, their political parties, and their campaigns.
That’s the change that must come and it must start now.

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