Citizens: Research what a candidate will do in office

EARLIER IN THIS century I remember lying awake worrying about what might happen to my family member with cancer and our household in general in a time when the health-care system provided no real safety net for those with pre-existing conditions and no guarantee of affordable health care in general. I wondered why so many people would vote for a political party that showed no real interest in protecting the country’s citizens from healthrelated calamity.

Of course the answer was simple. The Republican Party did a great job distracting people from ... sound public policy with its constant emphasis on hot-button social issues like guns, gays and the fictitious war on Christianity. It worked, and droves of people voted for a party that had put us in an illegitimate war and then drove the country into the gutter economically.

Now, after seven years of demonizing the first health-care program that allowed many of us to sleep at night, the same party has failed to deliver any kind of improvement on heath care. Their efforts, while terrorizing many of us with threats to dismantle real health-care safety nets, has fortunately been shown to be the balderdash many of us suspected all along. However, many of us who pay attention have to continue to worry about what the Republican Party will do next, especially when being “led” by a childish oaf for a president.

All this leads me to a request of my fellow Republican citizens, as well as some Independents and Democrats, who have put us here. Please stop being intellectually lazy and really research what candidates are likely to do if put in power. Also, stop letting them manipulate you with hot-button emotional issues. I (am) not expecting you all to vote Democratic, I’m just asking you think independently and stop being so gullible.

JOHN CURRIER Rio Rancho