It is January 7th 2012. It is the year of a presidential election. One year from today America will have a president sworn into office. The entire senior class and some juniors too will be eligible to vote in the next election. So what kind of president do you want in the White House next year? Notice I did not ask the question “who.” I asked the question “what kind.” Do you want a president that runs on the wedge issues like abortion or gay rights? Do you want a president that blames the opposing party for all the ills of America today? Do you want a president who makes the election a mudslinging frenzy and who took every opportunity to take a cheap shot or right hook at his opponent? Finally, do you want a president who will put all of those behind him and realize America is in a dire situation, so he focuses on the issues? Simply do you want your president to be a divider or a uniter?

I do not believe President Obama has been a uniting President. In last four years we have seen President Obama make excuses for his troubles in office. At first he blamed President Bush by saying he inherited Bush’s troubled economy and large debt, which is true but the excuses were made into 2010 and Obama continued to spend at record rates. President Obama has complained that Republicans do not work with him. We saw this argument in the debt ceiling crisis where Republicans and Democrats refused to compromise with each other showing America why the approval rate of congress is below 30%. Also, in the last four years we have seen two groups form at opposite ends of the political spectrum. The Tea Party has formed on the far right, and the Occupy Movement has formed on the far left. Under the Obama Presidency the economy has not been getting better and the only sign of hope is that recently the unemployment rate has dropped to 8.5%. That rate is still high and that is the lowest the unemployment rate has been since July of 2008. The most shocking is that according to a recent Rasmussen Poll only 22% of Americans feel the country is going in the right direction.

The Republican Party is in the middle of their primary election and the party has the best chance to nominate a candidate that can unite this country. Back in the summer of 2011 a poll said that an unnamed Republican candidate could beat Obama, but today the polls of realclearpolitics.com show moderate Mitt Romney only beats Obama. (Gingrich and Santorum are the only others polled and they both lose by 5 points) On a national stage a moderate wins, but the Republican Party would be upset if a conservative did not win the nomination. Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Hannity, and Mr. Levin, the three biggest conservative voices, believe a true conservative will fix America. What I believe these polls really show is that America does not want a Liberal or Conservative ideologue in office. America wants a moderate, someone who, because they are in the middle, has a chance to unite the country. The results of the Iowa Caucus showed America that Republican voters do support Romney, but they also support true social and economic Conservative, Santorum. The Republican Party has to decide whether they want a conservative to win or a republican to win. Some believe that if Romney gets the nomination he will lose conservative voters because some conservatives will just not vote. However, I believe if conservatives are the true republicans they say they are then they will vote because they know by not voting for a republican they are voting for a liberal democrat. The republicans need to nominate a candidate to unite this country.

This is not a pro Romney article. Romney has a long way to go before he wins the Republican nomination and proving himself to be a uniter candidate. As the election year continues I want everyone to just think of what kind of president they want to see elected in 2012.