We are now only a few weeks from this next election.  Candidates are spending what is no longer a small fortune to get out their message.  I wonder at times what could be done with all the money spent in campaigns for other means.  You could probably feed most of the hungry in our country with that amount of money.  No one ever seems to pick up on that in the media.  Just seems somewhat ironic that these two men spend so much cash to tell us how they can fix our problems for the price that may actually do some good.  We might make a small dent in our national debt if they turned over their funds for that.

Neither candidate is setting the world on fire now.  In fact, both seem intent in running their campaigns in ways we can learn how not to do it.  You would also think that a sitting President would not make the mistakes this one does.  Even he needs better advisers.  Then the efforts of the Romney group leave tons to be desired.  Things have to be bad when even your own political party says you have issues.  The history nerd in me really would like to know what these two guys are thinking.  Reality is that about ninety percent of our country already knows who will get their vote.  What the candidates are trying to do is persuade the very few undecideds to vote for them.  The question is how will they make their decision?

We talk about the social issues of our day as believers.  We should be doing that.  Items like abortion, marriage and other hot topics are a concern for people with biblical values.  Scripture does indeed give us a framework to develop our agenda in that aspect of policy.  Just be careful how you do your study to reach your conclusions.  You need to know that some believers will take the Bible to aim for positions it may not really teach.  Some liberals vote that way in the idea that scripture says the government should care for the poor.  It is very true that the poor matter to God.  He says much more about poverty than we realize.  But it does not mean scripture says it is the role of the government to be in that position.  Most of its direction is about the church doing more for the poor.  It is tough to move from that truth to establishing more government programs.

But it also illustrates a harsh reality.  Not every believer votes by social issues.  People still basically vote with their pocketbooks.  That hasn't changed since this all started.  What this also says is we do not always consider our economic policy as a whole.  Lots of people still start with what can a candidate do for me.  We may wax eloquent about our values but far too many still cast a ballot due to more selfish reasons.  I cannot tell you who will win this November.  I could say who seems to be the favorite but predictions are like noses.  Everyone has one.  What we can do is be informed to make the best choice possible.  This may not be an easy thing to do but it will be worth the effort.

Bro. Trey