2012 is about you!

In the quiet corner of your mind, you ponder the economy’s dismal condition. Such condition has sent most families to the brink of destruction. You dig and probe to understand what went wrong. Your assessment seems as common among folks in the villages. You take it a bit further saying, “but they promised to improve the livelihood of the common people.”

But as we probe the myriad of issues unsuccessfully, we often ignore that the issue returns, time and again, to the three people you know best: me, myself and I. How did you vote in recent past hoping for real change? Did you slide into the boat of comfort that prolongs nepotism to your own detriment? Isn’t it time to take a step back and resolve never to repeat history? It’s all in the palm of your hands, folks. And real change begins with the self.

Personally, I’d like to see real credentials, you know, education and level. I’m not talking about your experience as a checker with a shipping firm or your stint with Customs Division. Real credentials enable governance in the complex field of policymaking to grant initial indication of success or failure from the outset. It’s sufficient material to give voters a glimpse of your likelihood succeeding as a policymaker or just an unheralded Occupant of Seat in Chamber.

As the various camps review their list of political trade horses, the folks in the villages have started their tummy chuckles, pondering what the guys have to offer this midterm election.

Most assuredly, the likely prospects know that this midterm election is a bit different and that governance will be far more critical than in past elections.

The economy is sliding further south into complete bankruptcy, the adverse effect on households here has not only been painfully adverse but apocalyptically on the brink of total disaster. It has forced underemployment (victims of work-hour reduction), unemployment, an imperiled Fund placing some 6,000 retirees on the brink of abject poverty or destitution; an underfunded healthcare system threatening the health and livelihood of our people; and a future riddled with uncertainty on every corner.

If you’re an incumbent (Covenant or Republican), what have you done to mitigate any of the substantive issues mentioned above? Did you find some space in your frontal lobotomy to push for a proactive review of these issues in concert with the administration? For newcomers, do you have the credentials to deal with these issues with some common decency? Do you understand them and can you, in fact, articulate them publicly? And if you think you can bluff it, can you explain your position in the vernacular so we probe the validity and credibility of your oral dissertation?

You see, the CNMI is now at the crossroads of either making it or breaking it in forging positive policy decisions relating to every issue listed above. We can no longer surrender them to political neophytes. This has worked adversely against governance and hope that you the voter would see it clearly too.

Hope you see and make a difference in who you select to handle matters of state with credentials and relevant experience. We need independent thinkers who could articulate issues as they are presented for review, floor debates, and disposition. If you don’t have it, do you really have the gall to ask for my vote? Not ready to promote incompetence in perpetuity!

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Over the last 40 years, I’ve seen assorted political stripes march in and out of office promising to uphold the laws and constitution of the U.S. and the NMI. Most aren’t even familiar with the first principles or its history, supremacy of laws, or any inkling that theirs is policymaking. No idea either that it is in what they set down as matters of policy that would prepare or derail the CNMI from moving forward or advancing to the rear. Well, there’s no one around to blame except “We the Voters” for playing up nepotism since time immemorial. Are we ready to make a repeat of history this time around?

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Many of us have set our eyes on the national Republican race to understand what’s behind each candidate. Specifically, we want to know each individual’s ability to relate, via life-changing experiences, to a majority of Americans across the country.

Frontrunner Mitt Romney may be ahead of the three folks eyeing the national GOP nomination. But I find him a difficult person to relate to for he seems a bit too scripted but fits the crisp white shirt and blue suit more than anything else. It isn’t his fault that he never had any life-changing experiences other than his grand success at wealth and jobs creation.

Columnist and author Jeff Greenfield had this to say: “He must show his human side, he must connect with real people, he must define himself more clearly, he must offer us a compelling vision of why he wants to be president.”

Lurking beneath the surface of these concerns is a more fundamental one that no amount of repositioning or “messaging” can fix, he related. “Put simply, it is that Mitt Romney is ill-equipped to embrace the Republican Party’s favorite argument: that its candidate best embodies the values and attributes of the American electorate—or, at least, the part of the country that Sarah Palin called “the Real America.”

“But a Republican candidate who cannot present that gut-level argument bears a special burden. And in the case of Mitt Romney, the burden is particularly heavy,” said Greenfield.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich is the only presidential bet that sent Obama squirming on energy. He forced him into a corner where the president was quibbling, “What about the use of algae?” Gingrich almost always presents explanation of substance to the delight of voters of various stripes. He strikes at what the country needs now from one with true presidential leadership, not one who’s still confused over his own ill-defined policies and imperiled presidency being dragged down by protracted economic recovery to gasoline prices headed toward $4-5 per gallon. Articulate as he may be, strange how he’s missed discussing the first principles that made our country great since its founding some 236 years ago.

My problem with Rick Santorum is his loss in his own Pennsylvania that obviates the question: If he can’t win at home, what are his chances of raking in national support for his presidential aspiration? I like Ron Paul for his libertarian views if and, only if, those views are limited to academia. He means well but he’d get us into trouble with the international community. Gingrich would be Obama’s nightmare in any and all debates and any encounter would send the latter looking for the exit door in the backroom. But Romney’s salvation rests with what’s known as the vote of “inevitability.”