The Presidency: Troubling Choices

To the Editor: 
The Republican and Democratic parties and their primary voters did us no favors in their candidate selections. Having no party loyalties to steer my choice, neither has me eager to dash to the polls and vote for them. Both are big on what they’ll do, thin on how. There is a third choice, to stay home Nov. 8, though I’ve never done that. I can pare the choices to two. Trump or stay home.
President Obama heaped praise on Hillary Clinton, declaring she’s the most qualified for the presidency ever. Really? Hillary’s qualifications (or lack in my view) aren’t the main issue, lack of character is. She is driven by shameless, selfish ambition with a sense of entitlement to the presidency, is a proven serial liar about the Benghazi video, emails, and email servers, not to mention her irresponsible handling of classified information. Beyond unqualified, she’s unfit to be president. She is a consummate Washington insider. In addition to lying, she’s a master of the skills valued by those who covet positions of power in Washington: evasion, obfuscation, stonewalling and deception.  I’m convinced her vision for America is the gift of her as president. Everything else is campaign blather. Some worry she’d be Obama 3.0. Perhaps. For certain, the onerous Obama executive orders and regulatory excesses would not be overturned and continue to impede free-market economic growth along with increased government meddling.
We need a GOP president to turn things around. Enter Donald Trump. This ego-driven bombastic man whose clumsy rhetoric, thin skin and gruff persona sure make him hard to like. He should consider abandoning his Twitter account. With all Trump’s “warts” he will cast out many of Obama’s execs and regs and save the Supreme Court from a strong leftward tilt under Clinton. For the long-term good of the nation, Trump may be a less-risky choice than progressive, big-government Hillary. She praised running mate Tim Kaine for his record on social justice, translation: more intrusive government programs, wealth redistribution, deficits and debt. As commander-in-chief, I believe Trump would be very proactive while Hillary would be just slightly less timid than Obama. But I am not all that comfortable with Trump. Like it or not, he’s the only Republican we can elect to make that essential change in the White House.
I’ve always voted, exercising my constitutional right. But it may be an exercise in futility. New Jersey has a large Democrat voting majority which because of the unfair winner-take-all rule, all of the state’s electoral votes will go to Hillary Clinton. That means GOP votes won’t count except perhaps as protest votes.
Electoral votes should be apportioned based on the popular vote distribution in the state. We hear a lot of whining from the left, alleging how voter ID laws disenfranchise minority and some elderly voters. But that pales in comparison to the millions of voters disenfranchised by the winner-take-all rule in all but two states (Nebraska and Maine). It’s not just the “blue” states like ours but “red” states to where voters for the Dem’s candidate are shut out. This needs correcting and state legislatures can do it. But politicians like it this way. It makes campaigning a lot simpler, focusing mostly on the “battleground” states. Not only do the choices, this time, leave a lot to be desired, but the awarding of electoral votes by winner-take-all is an injustice!