Are you looking @the correct issues when choosing your next president? Why are you voting the way you are?

I agree with you and with auntb93, but "john" is missing the whole point if he fails to consider the PATTERNS of the "private sector" Romney of whom he speaks.

Consider these factors, "john": Taking over viable companies (vulture capitalism) and then running those companies deeply into debt, firing the workers, "harvesting the assets" (Romney's own words to describe what Bain Capital did for its investors), stealing workers' pension funds (one way of harvesting), and either breaking the now-ruined company up into saleable parts for foreign investors or else outsourcing to third-world (slave-labor-wages) nations...This is what you think America needs? That is the ONLY "private-sector" experience Romney has. How do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is not the pattern he will use on this GOP-damaged nation which has been in a slow-but-steady recovery despite Republicans' obsession with blocking or trying to SABOTAGE every single nation-saving piece of legislation offered by this nation's first black President? Answer: You do not. This then is where you consider past patterns of behaviors in order to decide who would best represent the needs and values of this nation. So try these behaviors on for size:

As an 18-year-old senior near graduation at a private and prestigious Cranbrook High School, Willard Mitt Romney regularly degraded and bullied students rumored to be gay, including junior John Lauber (as witnessed by five men, now professionals in life, who came forward to confess their involvement), saying things like "atta girl" when these students spoke in class. Think PATTERN here and also consider TOLERANCE for others' differences: When 17-year-old Lauber dyed his hair blond and opted to let the front grow longer, so-called "religious" Romney became enraged---so enraged that he called "my posse" (the five men mentioned) and announced to the entire dorm, "We are going to cut Lauber's hair!" Romney then TACKLED the frightened younger classman, knocking him to the floor, and ordered "my posse" to "Hold him down!" while bully Romney ignored the young man's tears and pleas for help and proceeded to CUT OFF unsightly clumps of Lauber's dyed blond hair! Later in life, John Lauber committed suicide, and all five of the professionals came forward to express remorse, but not Romney: "Ha ha ha...I don't recall....I was given to pranks" (a hate crime on a younger classman relegated to a "prank"). Look at the INTOLERANCE here, and now review all the tapes of Romney's public appearances where he claims "I love to fire people," or the notorious "47%" he labels as beneath him ("victims" who rely on Social Security, military pensions, or other government assistance). THIS is what you want to inflict upon the vast melting pot of Americans?

President Obama's wise policies have REVERSED the Republican-policy-caused plummet into near third-world status from 2001 through the first three months of 2009 (see whitehouse.gov and recovery.gov for details). The Credit CARD Act of 2009, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street and Banking Reforms, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act plus its supplemental consumer-serving Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act---these are all people-serving greed-regulating policies that are part of our nation's recovery and return to service for ALL Americans! The many successes of the Obama administration have put us on a slow-but-steady path towards full recovery, and that recovery would be far more ROBUST if the American people would do as the questioner suggests and consider the POLICIES that best serve this nation and the American people for the LONG-TERM. Fundamentalism does not have a place in the political arena---it is a one-religion perspective in a MELTING-POT America that embraces ALL religious beliefs, which means "abortion" and telling American women what they can and cannot do for their own bodies should not be a factor here. These are battles already won...why go backwards to a NEANDERTHAL and CHAUVANISTIC America now? For our economy, President Obama and the DEMOCRATS have proven to be the very best choices, with a few endangered-species moderate Republicans in the mix. Vote accordingly.

Despite the fact that an awfully most important team of voters, hardly anymore essential then say the ladies vote, the black vote, the gray vote, or the White Male vote. In this country you have to win a consensus of all most important businesses or your not going to win the administrative center.

The "correct issues" may be the ones most directly confronting the individual voter, but not always. There are principles involved, too. Compassion, justice, economic growth, social progress. I'm 65; should I forget about the Republicans' attack on Social Security and Medicare because they assure me they will protect my benefits, even though they plan to screw those younger than me? I'm not gay; should I ignore the injustices to my friends and fellow Americans who are gay? I don't have any children; should I not care what happens to children and young people? I have a valid photo ID; should I not be concerned about vote suppression?

I'm no saint. I spend more time thinking about those issues that affect me personally, but I also see that what harms my community harms me. I want to live in a happy, prosperous community where people have respect for one another and tend to think in terms of cooperation rather than competition.

I vote based on sanity this time. Mormons believe that God created multiple worlds and each world has people living on it. They also believe that multiple Gods exist but each has their own universe. We are only subject to our God and if we obtain the highest level of heaven we can become gods ourselves.

D&C 76: 24

24 That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.

D&C 93: 10

10 The worlds were made by him; men were made by him; all things were made by him, and through him, and of him.

Moses 1: 33

33 And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.

D&C 76: 108

108 Then shall he be crowned with the crown of his glory, to sit on the throne of his power to reign forever and ever.

D&C 131: 1-5

1 In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees;

2 And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage];

3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it.

4 He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase.

5 (May 17th, 1843.) The more sure word of prophecy means a man’s knowing that he is sealed up unto eternal life, by revelation and the spirit of prophecy, through the power of the Holy Priesthood.

Yes, I'm looking at the issues...

I grew up DIRT poor in bad neighborhoods in Brooklyn... my husband did, too, in Spanish Harlem, NY. I mean, food stamps pretty much was the major support of almost everyone we know.

Know what? Government cannot take care of people well. That's the fact. It wastes a lot of money and doesn't take care of people effectively.

We need a government with lower taxes and lower regulations to create more opportunities, with incentives for people to take care of themselves... because that's how people break the cycle of poverty. When they stop waiting for entitlements and stop thinking of themselves as helpless and stuck, and when they start making smarter choices and take personal responsibility for themselves.

My husband and I got out of those neighborhoods... because we stopped depending on the government and started depending on ourselves.

Most of the people we grew up with are still there... still depending on the government.

I am voting because of these issues:

- I believe the federal government should not take care of people

- I believe the fed gov't's job is to create opportunity for people to take care of themselves independently

- I believe the gov't does not do a good job running things; the private sector does a better job, and more efficiently.

- I believe states should have more control over their local needs than the big federal government should have

- I believe success should not be penalized

- I believe complicity, stagnation, bad choices, laziness & failure should not be rewared or enabled

- I believe help should be reserved for only those who truly need it by no choice or fault of their own

- I believe we could help those who truly need it BETTER if we didn't give so many people opportunities to milk the system

- I believe people should keep more of their own money, and make their own decisions about how they want to spend, donate or invest it

- I believe in personal responsibility

- And I believe that a few people being resopnsible for the welfare of most people will never work and ultimately lead to waste and corruption, and be a disincentive to succeed all around (why should the rich earn more if it will be taken away? Why should the poor try harder when they'll get less?)

- But I believe most people being as responsible for themselves and hold themselves accountable for their own needs would create an era of growth and prosperity unlike any ever seen

And that is why I could never vote for President Obama; he does not agree with any of those beliefs. I am voting for Romney.

I noticed that some tend to repeat the talking points spewed by hate-speech-central radio.

That's not where original thinking comes by endlessly parroting professional charlatans of political distraction narratives designed to appeal directly to people who are eager to latch onto any narrative that paints the marginalized segments of society as lazy or undeserving.

I'm highly disappointed that there is virtually little difference between Obama or Romney.

- Both are worshipers of capital, wall street, investment wealth hoarders.

- both shill for and apologize for the excessive casino mindsets of wall-street

Granted Obama talks about bad ol' wall street, but his policies which he could enact by executive decision have yet to materialize because Obama isn't so much counting on his supporters from forcing him to get tough with wall street, he's counting on the GOP preventing him from doing anything substantive about broken wall street's too mega-corrupt to fail banksters.

- Both candidates are eager to dismantle the successful great society programs although for slightly different motivations.

- Obama is still trying to convince the GOP that he puts out on the first date, so he's willing to sell grandma up the river if only the GOP would agree to allow him to destroy Social security for them.

- Romney would dismantle social security with or without the approval of congress, because he has a major heart-on for all those trillions of dollars in the trust fund that are just sitting there waiting to be stolen and redistributed among the greedy investor class on wall street, screw the poor and screw grandma too!

Sadly, the lesser of two evils is still evil, one has to pretend that Obama won't follow through with his threats to dismantle social security just so that maybe, just maybe the GOP will agree to default on any agreement they made 5 minutes ago.

There's no guarantee that if Obama manages to get reelected that he lacks any political motivation to abandon his self-defeating obsession with capitulating, (bipartisanship) on every single one of his policy objectives by conceding, (in advance) any final decision to his recalcitrant GOP counterparts.

I am proud to say that I'm voting for the candidate who has experience in the private sector.I am voting fot the candidate whose mandated health care policy will not force Christian institutions to provide for the murder of the unborn.

I am voting for the candidate whose foreign policy will not allow The United States to bow down to our world wide enemy.

You are what is wrong with this country. Too many people vote for or against a candidate according to what the candidate will do for them. Vote for what is right and just!, not what benefits you! That is why we have so many lobbyists. Too many special interests!!! If it is right it is right for EVERYBODY!

Those people in their 70s and 80s who are pro-life aren't pro-life because they're thinking about becoming pregnant. That's ridiculous. They are pro-life because they don't believe in killing children in the womb. It's a matter of morals, not selfish practicality. They aren't thinking of only themselves, they are thinking of the value of life.

How on earth do you miss that point?

Simple, vote for the American who actually lived in the USA!