My candidate for president, mine only because I felt like I could not in good conscience vote for anyone else running in the Primary, dropped out last night. I can't really say I disliked Ted Cruz; I don't know him. But I wasn't inspired by his run for the presidency. I was voting for him as my only option in a far-from-perfect race. So now faced with what some have called a choice between Herod and Jezebel, I am in a quandary. I can't tell you what I'm going to do yet, except that I'm going to be in serious prayer before the convention this summer, and the election in November, and whatever I do will be a result of trying to follow the leading of the Lord, whom I believe is in control anyway, no matter what.
I am also taking a few moments to reflect on what I've learned in the nine election cycles leading up to this one.
As Christian believers, my parents voted for Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Ronald Reagan in 1984, believing at the time that those two each represented the values my parents held and lived by. Three and a half decades after the fact, we know that while Jimmy claimed to be a conservative Christian believer, he never really held conservative Christian beliefs, and while Regaan's credentials as Christian appeared questionable at best, his legacy as a Conservative president is still the standard for conservative Republicans.
I became very interested in politics in 1988, championing first Pat Robertson because of his Christianity, then Bob Dole for his conservatism and war-hero status, and finally George HW Bush for the simple reason that he was the only candidate left. I knew nothing about him personally, nothing about his faith or his policies, but he was running against Dukakis and Jesse Jackson. If I had been old enough to vote, my choice would have been clear.
I will admit that I was briefly attracted to Bill Clinton's campaign in 1992, but when his character was exposed on the national stage, I voted for Bush instead. Thanks to a third-party bid by the ridiculous Ross Perot, Bush lost and we got eight years of wishy-washy, poll-driven, immoral leadership that did little more than weaken America in the world's eyes, and weaken the moral standards of what until that point had been a Christian-leaning nation.
I voted for Dole in 1996 (I was always a fan, and wish his wife had run at some point). My Dad, a Pastor and Christian conservative, voted for Bill Clinton that year. His reasoning? He prayed, believed God had shown him Clinton would be the president, so he voted that way. I didn't necessarily agree with his decision, but it was his to make.
By the time 2000 came around, I knew I could never vote for a Democrat on a national level; I will not cast my vote for the party that supports abortion and perversion, that is anti-God, anti-church, anti-righteousness, and anti-Christ. Frankly, I think the Democratic Party is anti-America, too, but that's a different issue altogether; I'm not convinced the Republican party is pro-America any more either. They are all out for their party and themselves. From the day he announced his candidacy, George W. Bush was my candidate in 2000, and I voted for him again in 2004. I didn't agree with everything that he did, but I believe he was a man of integrity who saw our nation through a very dark and difficult time.
John McCain was not my choice in 2008; in fact, I didn't really like any of the candidates who ran that year. My guy didn't run. As I keep saying, I don't know who my guy is, but he didn't run. Faced with a choice between a weak republican and his charismatic Veep pick, and B. Hussein Obama and Big Mouth Joe, I voted for Sarah Palin. 2012 was 2008, second verse same as the first, but my personal opinion is that Mitt Romney was closer to me in both faith and practice than the undercover Islamist in the White House.
Now here we are, looking at another election cycle, and for the first time in my life, I simply don't have a candidate that I can either endorse or vote for. We KNOW who and what Hillary Clinton is, and I cannot vote for her. But we also KNOW who and what Donald Trump is, and I cannot vote for him either. These two are both unGodly and unChristian in their beliefs and lifestyles. Neither of them stand for my values and the things I hold most dear. Neither of them is someone I want running this country.
What's even stranger for me is the thought that at least Hillary Clinton is who she says she is, and will do what she says she will do. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a political chameleon who changes color with the crowd he's with. He says what he believes the people want to hear, promises whatever he thinks will garner him the most votes, and if he wins, I think it could be a horror show such as we have never seen in the 230 years of our Republic. So who do I vote for--the devil I know, or the devil I don't know?
This is the time for the believers in Babylon to pray for a deliverer. And if God sees fit to do something different, this is really the time for believers to double down on their faith and hold on to the unchanging hand of God. Because no matter who gets elected, change is gonna come.
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