From the time the presidential started almost two years ago, we have been inundated with many candidates, but one by one they have been eliminated and the playing field has been cleared of all competitors except for the Obama team for the Democrats and the McCain team for the Republicans. At least now we know what our choices are.



The one thing that is bothering some people who will vote in November is the fact that we still do not have a really clear picture as to where the candidates stand on many issues. This might be because the real issues are often clouded over by other topics that we might not even consider relevant to their campaigns.

Smoke screens as they are referred to, can be handy items for politicians when they are running for an office in the government. They will use stories about what they have done in the past or some family thing to keep our attention on that instead of the important things we want to know about like what they are going to go about the fuel crisis, the economy, or the housing market.

So far in this presidential race we have heard endlessly about John McCain and his stint as a POW. Now no one should downplay the significance of his service to our country as a soldier, but really, he is not by far the only soldier who endured this and it does not mean that it makes him more qualified to be president than any other soldier who experienced the same thing.

As for his running mate, Sarah Palin, she probably is a wonderful soccer mom, or was it hockey? The point is what that have to do with her qualifications as a vice president, or president if anything happened to McCain? Do we believe that a mother of five who has to deal with ball practices, newborn babies, and teenager problems will have time to run the country as adequately as someone who has less personal responsibilities? Not meaning to be disrespectful to working mothers, but they can tell you how stressful it can be to do this job alone, much less try to be vice president of the strongest nation in the world at the same time!

The democrats have their smoke screens too, such as what Obama did in the housing projects, but this at least does show something he did for the better good. It would be better if all the candidates stick to the issues that mean something. Of course, we do want to know who these people are and what kind of people they are, but what we really want to know is how are they going to help our country today?