Who is presidential material?

We’re off to the races.  Two debates were held Thursday to familiarize the American people with how each of the Republican candidates would lead our country.  After this first round of debates, I was left with a rather scary feeling that we may be facing this next presidential election with no one suitable to lead this country.

On the left it is obvious that Hillary Clinton will emerge as one of the choices.  While Clinton possesses what President Obama has always been accused of lacking, namely, job related experience; she certainly raises questions of presidential material by her aloofness and untrustworthiness coupled with ties to the Bill Clinton baggage.

On the right we have a cadre of candidates who have decided to hang their presidential qualifications on the ‘undoing syndrome.’ In the debates, each vowed to undo the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran, the Common Core Standards, and the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.  Also they vowed to stop Mexican immigrants from crossing the border.  And let’s not forget the latest buzz topic, the defunding of the Planned Parenthood Program.

The solution to the Iran deal was to tear it up.  The solution for the Common Core Standards was to let the states develop their own (Louisiana royally failed at that), and the solution for the Affordable Care Act was to repeal all aspects.  However, while all these ideas pandered to the hot topics of today, I left the debates with emptiness because no viable alternatives were offered to these problems that our country faces. 

After the Iran deal is torn up, what is the alternative to preventing Iran from developing nuclear bomb capabilities?   Once Obamacare is repealed, it’s unclear if and how these candidates  would replace it.  The Republican Party has yet to formulate their own plan to rally behind 5 years after The Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress.

Where was the proposed alternative to Planned Parenthood which is the leading providers of high-quality, affordable health care for over 5 million women, men, and young people world–wide? Do we simply cut off these services?

Although the Mexicans were singled out in the debate as the source of the illegal immigration problem, it was obvious that only one candidate really understood it, for in fact, as he correctly pointed out, immigrants from other countries such as Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, comprise the largest number of undocumented immigrants crossing the border, not the Mexicans. 

Obviously, with so many candidates time did not allow them to explain their solutions to the pressing problems facing our country.  But no one even stated they had viable replacement solutions after all the ‘undoing.’

 

Hope more substance emerges from the next debate, because right now things aren’t looking very promising for either party’s candidates.