With an election just around the corner, I’ve been searching for the candidates I want to vote for. I haven’t found any – and I’d imagine some of you may feel the same. I spent some time wondering why this is, why my vote seems to always go to the person I feel will cause the least damage rather than one I feel comfortable guiding my country and representing me. I think part of the problem is that we wait for candidates to tell us what we should believe and how we should vote and then decide whether or not we agree. I’d instead like to tell them what I’m looking for and they can choose whether or not they want my support. So here’s who I’d like to vote for.

• First and foremost I’d like to vote for a candidate with integrity and character, one that has been faithful to his individual, family, and professional duties. I’d like to vote for a candidate whose greatest allegiance is to his own values, values that have been developed through thoughtful commitment rather than convenience.
• I’d like to vote for a candidate that campaigns on the strength of her ideas, one that doesn’t try to tell me what the other candidates have wrong, one that doesn’t even mention the other candidates but uses her precious public time to tell me about her proposed solutions.
• I’d like to vote for a candidate that believes in improvement more than parties, in solutions more than pandering – one that remembers that this country was founded by people with different views that found a way to compromise. I don’t want to vote for a candidate that holds pep rallies where the crowd cheers at every sentence like we’re about to play the homecoming football game, I want to vote for a candidate whose words cause me to reflect on the importance of the difficult tasks at hand. I don’t want to vote for someone who can defeat the other party; I want to vote for someone that can work with the other party.
• I’d like to vote for a candidate whom I believe would make the right choice for the country, based on his thoughtful consideration and values, even if it meant he’d lose reelection and public support.

If I found I candidate with those qualities, I’d cast my vote regardless of her stand on the issues. Perhaps I’m naïve, but I think we ought to be able to expect those qualities as a minimum in any candidate. If, however; we were fortunate to chose among several candidates that shared those basic fundamental qualities, the following reflect my personal opinion on public policy that I would like to have represented.

• I’d like to vote for a candidate that believes in simple fiscal responsibility, that we have no right to spend the next generation’s money through our deficit. (While I recognize that in times of recession or war a temporary deficit may be necessary so long as the budget is balanced in prosperous times.)
• I’d like to vote for a candidate that believes national defense isn’t just about having a strong military – one that recognizes the complexity of the security challenges we face and the effects of our dominant world position. I’d like to vote for someone that is as interested in our ability to prevent conflict as our ability to win wars.
• I’d like to vote for a candidate that has a viable solution for ensuring everyone in this country has health insurance and everyone has a part in paying for it, not one who tells me it can’t be run privately or can’t be run publicly.
• I’d like to vote for a candidate that won’t perpetuate our fear of the unknown and those unlike us. I’d like to vote for one that recognizes the strength of immigration and has a plan for bringing the honest, hard working undocumented workers into the legitimate economy while restoring order to the process of immigration.
• I’d like to vote for a candidate that isn’t Pro-Life or Choice, but simply believes that abortion should be avoided except in the difficult circumstances of rape or medical danger to mother and baby, and that the woman, not the government, ought to make the difficult decision in those circumstances.
• I’d like to vote for a candidate that will tell us that adjustments must be made to the Social Security program, and has a plan to make those adjustments and ensure the viability of the program – and that his plan will consider the arguments coming from both sides of the aisle.
• I’d like to vote for a candidate that believes in efficiency and justice in all government programs and organizations and will work hard to attain those goals. I’d like to vote for a candidate that believes social programs are a necessity in modern free-market societies, and believes that they should be run as efficiently as possible to ensure all who are in need of them are provided a means to develop self-reliance.
• I’d like to vote for a candidate that believes that if the state is going to be involved in the institution of marriage at all, that it can only support an institution that benefits the state – therefore it can only support the marriage of a man and a woman which is the foundation of our society. I’d like to vote for a candidate that acknowledges that individuals have the liberty to pursue non-traditional relationships, but that the state can only support those relationships that benefit society, those relationships where children have the opportunity to be raised by a mother and father.
• I’d like to vote for a candidate that believes in the value of investment, both in infrastructure and in education – that will allocate the resources of our country to that end. I’d like to vote for a candidate that will focus public investment in an effort to develop sustainable energy solutions.

So that’s my vote. I invite the candidates to listen to me, rather than convincing me to listen to them. I also encourage you all to make your views heard so that the candidates can choose to represent us, rather than pleading for our support of them.