Elwar

Once again 4 years pass and we are left with a choice between two candidates to choose from for president.

While we all may have our reasons to vote one way or another, I hope that everyone will keep an open mind and look at the positions and principles of the two men who have campaigned hard for president. Your vote is an important one and should not be taken lightly.

So I will break down the two choices in a non-biased way, noting that at this point even I do not know which candidate I will be voting for, so this is not to sway you one way or another.

I will describe each candidate without using their names so that you will not be biased based upon preconceived notions based upon the huge amount of money which has gone into making you vote for either candidate. I will merely describe their past and their voting record and leave you to decide.

The first candidate, Candidate A, was in office as a leader for 8 years. Before taking office he was a businessman who grew a successful business from a small one man operation to a huge well known respected business by the time he ran for office. When running for office he made a point to not bring dirty politics into the campaign and never said anything bad about his opponent. Instead he ran a positive campaign based solely on the good he wished to bring to office.

He was elected in a state that is overwhelmingly Democrat leaning and instead of compromising with the Democrat controlled legislature he held strong to his principles and balanced the budget and cut the size of the government workforce by over 1200 people without firing a single employee. He was well known throughout his career for voting "No" on anything that would expand the size of government, even if it meant taking heat for voting against what would be considered a minor "feel good" piece of legislation. He stuck to his principles and continually voted No, disregarding any worry about re-election.

He was re-elected for a second four years even after spending his first term fighting big government in a heavily Democrat state. He continued his second term with a balanced budget and stood behind his beliefs of smaller government and personal responsibility.

He runs on the very same principles he ran on when he was in office and has not wavered in his resolve to continue the same fight as president of the United States of America.

The second candidate, Candidate B, decided to run for office after seeing that his country was falling apart and that those in power were sending it down a path that did not represent his ideas of America. He fought hard in DC as a representative, often times going against the mainstream establishment politicians as the sole vote against everyone else in the chamber. He was one of the few politicians to vote against the Iraq war and the Patriot Act, standing by his principles of civil liberties and freedom. He was also known very well for voting "No" while the out of control Washington machine was voting "Yes".

When he began his campaign for presidency he became well known for the amount of enthusiasm he could stir up and was well known for getting grassroots support holding huge rallies of excited followers and using the Internet in a way that no other politician before had been able to do, organizing people to get out the vote and show their support for their candidate.

Throughout his career he has stood by and defended the Constitution and the founding principles that this country was built upon. Every vote that has come before him for every piece of legislation was met with the question of "is this authorized by the Constitution?". If the answer was "No", then he would proceed with such a vote.

He runs on the very same principles he ran on when he was in office and has not wavered in his resolve to continue the same fight as president of the United States of America.

So, when it comes time to go and vote on November 6th and choose between the two candidates, you will have a difficult decision between Candidate A (Gary Johnson) or Candidate B (writing in Ron Paul). Those who support one candidate or the other will pressure you to vote based upon one insignificant thing or the other, based upon what one may or may not have said at one point in their life. But it all comes down to what they have done in the past and what they plan to do as president of the United States.

For me, personally, I have met both candidates. I have shook their hands and seen them speak. My support for the 2012 primary election was initially behind Gary Johnson because I assumed that Ron Paul had passed on the mantle to him in 2008. I even reserved the website, garyjohnson2012.com early on so that nobody would take it and use it against him. When Governor Johnson announced, I gladly handed over the domain so that he could use it for his campaign. Then when Ron Paul announced his candidacy I jumped behind his campaign, even taking a day out to fly up to Washington DC to vote for him at CPAC.

Throughout the Republican primary I let it be known that I would be voting for Ron Paul no matter whom the Republicans chose, even if it meant writing in his name. I suppose that if I am to follow the principles of each candidate who are both consistent and principled, I should stand by my word and write in Ron Paul. Although I would be honored to vote for Gary Johnson and I feel that he is certainly up to the task of being our next president and has proven himself throughout the whole campaign to be unwavering and a fighter to the end.

Governor Johnson asked how he could repay me for handing over the garyjohnson2012 website to him and the effort I had put in for his campaign, my response was "There's nothing to repay, just run and win in 2012.". His response: "I will promise that it won't be due to a lack of effort.". And from what I have seen this election season, that is certainly true.