Some Additional Thoughts After The Republican Convention

With each passing day the stakes in this coming presidential election get higher. Whoever takes the office is going to find plenty to keep them busy. Lets list the problems and hope whoever wins has some good ideas.

• Rising Unemployment
• A Mortgage Crisis
• Rising National Debt/Deficit
• Declining Stock Market
• War in Iraq
• War in Afghanistan
• A Newly Antagonistic Russia
• Unaffordable Health Care
• Oil at $100+ a Barrel
  
• Declining Education System
  
• Damaged Environment (Another big chunk of ice broke loose a day ago.)
• Looming Threat of Terrorism
  

I mention all of this to say wake up America and get in the game but then this video sort of made my point for me.

New Job, New President... The Back To School Experience

When you leave school you imagine you are saying goodbye to so many experiences. At 38 it is clear to me that you are not so much saying goodbye to those school experiences as living them again and again in new settings. Take for example this new job I started. The first day at a new job is like heading off to a new school. Will the kids like me? Will the teacher (boss) be a jerk? As you get older maybe you get better at these experiences but regardless they keep on coming. Two weeks into this gig I find myself hoping I won't have too much "homework" and wondering if I will ever fit in with the other "kids" at work?

Presidential politics is not that far removed from the schoolyard either. Just ask McCain and Obama who have been having an epic popularity contest in the lunch room that is the modern media over the past week. Obama is all "I'm the new kid but I am cool." and McCain is all "He's the new kid you can't like him and I'm tough." It's a heck of a way to pick a president but such is life.

Are All The Candidates Having This Kind of Impact?