President: Barack Obama and Joe Biden (D)

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PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS
(Vote for One Pair)

Virgil H. Goode Jr. / Jim Clymer
American Constitution

Barack Obama / Joe Biden
Democratic

Mitt Romney / Paul Ryan
Republican

Gary Johnson / James P. Gray
Libertarian

Jill Stein / Cheri Honkala
Green

Stewart Alexander / Alex Mendoza
Socialist, USA

Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson / Luis J. Rodriguez
Justice

Roseanne Barr / Cindy Lee Sheehan
Peace and Freedom

James Harris / Alyson Kennedy
Socialist Workers

Tom Hoefling / Jonathan D. Ellis
America’s

Gloria La Riva / Filberto Ramirez Jr.
Socialism and Liberation

Merlin Miller / Harry V. Bertram
American Third Position

Jill Reed / Tom Cary
Unaffiliated

Thomas Robert Stevens / Alden Link
Objectivist

Sheila “Samm” Tittle / Matthew A. Turner
We the People

Jerry White / Phyllis Scherrer
Socialist Equality

Write-in 

We think that this country
will that third parties are important and never reach its full potential
until more parties are involved in the process. So if you want to vote
for a third party, we think that’s great, and we won’t accuse you of
throwing away your vote or giving the election away to the Democrats or
Republicans.

Speaking
of the two major parties, Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, has a
long history of changing his mind and saying whatever he thinks his
audience wants to hear in order to garner their support. In
Massachusetts he was a moderate Republican who oversaw that state’s
health care reform and did a pretty good job as governor. When he
decided to run for president this time around, he morphed into an
uncomfortable, last-minute convert to hyper-conservative tea-party
theology because he believed that it was his only chance to win the
nomination. Now he has to dance with the one who brought him.

As
a result, he is wrong on women’s issues, wrong on banking reform, wrong
on labor, wrong on tax fairness, wrong on foreign policy and very wrong
on his approach to the use of U.S. military power in general and in the
Middle East in particular. And he chose the wrong running mate in Paul
Ryan because he was once again trying to appease the hyper-conservatives
who believe that only reducing taxes and the national debt matters,
even though those positions are mutually exclusive.

Some
people say we have no idea who the real Mitt Romney is, but in truth,
he has always been perfectly consistent. He is a man who will say and do
anything in order to attain power. He became more liberal to run a
state and is perfectly willing to become more conservative to run a
country. He is a chameleon addicted to the prestige of power.

Because
Romney is so wrong, we are supporting Barack Obama, who we believe is a
far better choice for president than the former governor. That said, we
have been very disappointed with Obama in his first term. His record on
the environment is terrible, and he now supports even more gas
development and fracking. He failed to close Guantanamo as promised. He
has left in place all of the Bush-era intrusions into our privacy. He
has allowed the very banks that nearly destroyed the economy to not only
go unpunished, but to continue with the same reckless behavior that led
to this whole mess in the first place, all the while still taking their
campaign contributions.

On
the other side of the coin, the president has done some good things.
His health care reform was a modest effort but probably the best he
could do with a Congress bought and paid for by the health care
industry. He walked us back from the economic abyss in his first months
in office with a skill and calmness that belied the consequences had
he failed. And his handling of the Libyan crisis may well have created a
new model for U.S. military intervention going forward. He killed bin
Laden, but then politicized it and celebrated the incident like a
hunter strapping a buck on the hood of his truck.

Obama
is a far better choice than Romney, but sadly, he has turned out to be
just another politician rather than the instrument of hope and change
that we were promised. Perhaps with this, his last campaign, behind him
come November, Obama can still become the agent for change that this
country so desperately needs. We hope so, and are willing to give him
another four years.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com