Primary Colors

Pennsylvania's primary is coming a little earlier than the usual this year.
Our primary usually falls the second full week in May.  This time it's the fourth full week in April.
It was a bit exciting locally, at least until very recently.
Now-former Republican Rick Santorum, also Pennsylvania's former U.S. Senator, announced the second week in April that he was quitting his bid for the Presidency.
At the radio station for which I work, we paid particular attention to the campaign, because Rick has a local tie to the area.
For about a decade, he grew up here.  Not born here, no family here, but as the son of medical professionals assigned to our local VA Medical Center, Rick attended our local schools, and still recalled fond memories when back in the area and talking to the local media.
When he gave us time, that is.  Rick earned a reputation over the years for being somewhat truculent with reporters, with some of those moments chronicled on the air and in print.
He's also earned a reputation for being one of the most conservative politicians in modern history.  His views on homosexuality, women working outside the home, pornography, Social Security, and gun control have been widely publicized and criticized. 
He ran an underfunded campaign but still managed to produce results that yielded in his winning 11 primaries and caucuses...amounting to more than three million votes.
And now, he's out.
It never ceases to amaze me how many candidates drop out of the presidential election.  Why?
Because nobody wants that job.
Not anymore.
It wasn't but half a century ago when every little boy's ambition at some point in his childhood was to be the President of the United States.
The real power lies in the hands of Congress.  Yet one man takes the bullets for everything that's wrong (and right) in this country.
That's a hard job.  And for what it pays, you make more money in the private sector.  Chief executive of the U.S., $250,000.  CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation, put another zero at the end. 
At least.
It's food for thought.
If we don't have a capable leader at the helm, we put ourselves in a very vulnerable position against the rest of the world.
We've already seen what happened when the self-styled 'working class' takes over a country.
Freedom reverts from reality to a dream.


NEXT WEEK:  Calling the Doctor