With most students voting for the first time in a presidential election, it is essential that they be informed or at least have some idea of how important this election is before walking, or stumbling, into a voting booth.

With the economy not yet out of the woods, people still in needs of jobs and many social rights on the line, it is an important election for Americans.  So acknowledging how important the election is,  why do the Republicans seem to always turn it into a comical experience?

This election will decide how the country is run for the next four years.  Although that does not sound like a very long time, think back to the huge impacts past presidents  have had on this country for years after their terms.  Ronald Reagan is a great example of this.  Although he left office more than 20 years ago, his “Reaganomics” are still very visible today. He was the first president to put the wedge between the middle class and the upper class, a wedge that keeps on being pounded in by Republicans, widening the  gap between the middle and upper class as I write.

In 2008, we saw President Obama and Vice President Biden go up against the strangest combination of politicians one could think of: an old man, who, if he had his way with health care, would not have had the government-supplied health care to cure his own cancer, and a woman who tried to use her state’s proximity to Russia as foreign relations experience.  Both of these candidates worked hard to get to the White House and Sarah Palin did her part by making sure not to make a mockery of the debates. “Can I call you Joe?”

Fast forward to 2012, we see two men who might even top the previous pair: Mitt Romney, who would be a president neither party could trust. and his running mate Paul Ryan, who, at the Republican National Convention, made such ridiculous accusations of Obama that even a conservative-leaning Fox News columnist called him a liar.

At the convention Ryan told a crowd of cheering, misinformed Americans that it is Obama’s fault that the credit rating in America has dropped.  But, the reason that the credit rating dropped is because republicans threatened to not raise the debt ceiling.

And then there is the issue of gay marriage, which they don’t even have a valid argument argument anymore.  Please stop spewing the “sanctity of marriage” crap.  The divorce rate is currently 40-50 percent if current trends continue.   What is it, ‘till death do us part,” or, “until I see someone who has a nicer ass?”  In 2008 Republican nominee John McCain was on his second marriage.  Guess when he fell in love with his second wife?  While he was still married to the first. 

Let me move to abortion.  Let’s simply look at the number of people in this world. There are currently over seven billion people on earth, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  Everyone knows this is a problem but in the face of all that, Romney and Ryan, like most of the Republicans, do not think that federal dollars should be put toward supporting Planned Parenthood.  The  dynamic duo does not believe that grown women should be able to decide for themselves.  Ryan has always been against abortion in almost every situation, including rape, incest or life-threatening situation to the mother.  He has had to concede to Romney’s plan that allows those three cases.  But it’s good to have someone who is set in their ways to balance out a flip-flopper, right?  Even if it is in a way that takes rights out of women’s hands?  Wrong.

As for the economy, the Republicans say they are tired of Obama using the excuse that he was dealt a tough hand.  A tough hand?  We went from a President that left office with the greatest surplus the country has ever had, to a President that left us in the greatest debt this country has ever seen.  Obama has still been able to pull more than 1 million jobs out of that mess and pull the country a little bit further out of the recession.  And Paul Ryan’s economic plan that Congressional Republicans are excited about?  It would give tax breaks to the rich, a tax increase for the middle and lower class of approximately $2,160 per average family, a huge decrease in public services, such as transportation cut by 25 percent, assistance to the poor cut by 16 percent and education and social services cut by 33 percent.  As a college student going to a state university, that sounds good to me: do take away more of the money going to this school and tax me and my family more while you’re at it.

So for all of you planning to vote for Romney/Ryan, let this be your wake-up call.  It was said by Romney this January, “I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that’s the America millions of Americans believe in. That’s the America I love.” Wait a second, Romney might want a new rally cry, one that makes sense.  But then of course, if he’s trying to make sense, he’d have to completely disband the current Republican Party.

Tim Drugan Eppich is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at [email protected].