We are going to be electing a new president this year, which means our country will be run by a new administration with a new public policy agenda.  Shouldn’t we be scrutinizing more about what all this will look like? The nation has a whole host of problems the next president will have to face.  

A few worth mentioning are:

1. Trouble with Obamacare.  With many insurers pulling out of health exchanges after losing millions of dollars on the plans they offered through the Affordable Care Act
2. The ongoing war on terror both here and abroad that will require a real comprehensive and long-term strategy
3. The global challenges including China’s growing influence in the Pacific and Russia’s aggression towards its neighbors
4. An economy that has seen a very weak and tepid recovery from the Great Recession.
5. Immigration reform, which should not include the insane and improbable idea of deporting 11 million undocumented workers- that’s to you, Mr. Trump.

Although Hillary Clinton has been striving to keep her campaign focused on the issues, her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, would rather focus on the status of her health and make personal attacks against her, and the media just plays right along.

Mr. Trump has been using the politics of fear by claiming he will build a wall along our border with Mexico and not allow Muslims into our country.  That is not a sound immigration policy stance, and we should demand more seriousness and detail into what his immigration policy will actually be.  

The media coverage of the presidential campaign, however, has been consumed by the reporting on name-calling and the fishing for the next non-scandal to pop up.

With record negative favorability ratings for both candidates, pollsters tend to focus on how voters perceive the candidates’ “likeability,” because personality is what really counts to the casual citizen. But ultimately, it’s up to the American voter to ask the right questions to our candidates and demand that they present detailed plans on what they will do if they  were elected to the most powerful office on the planet.