A Nation Divided By Political Battlefields

Thursday night marked yet another GOP Debate of candidates trading barbs in between their harsh criticisms of the current President. All the while, it just seems like nobody gets how tiring the whole act is for the rest of the nation to watch.

I am all for good debate with logical, spirited discussions over an issue with both sides voicing their stance. While there has been some of that lively banter during what has felt like five thousand debates between these candidates, the good always seems to get overshadowed by snickering over non-sense.

Ron Paul and Rick Santorum have seemed to at least put an effort into avoiding some of the scrums that Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich cannot seem to keep their noses out of.

Romney was the aggressor in the second debate in four days Thursday night, pressing Gingrich to apologize for an ad labeling him as anti-immigrant and calling the idea "repulsive."

• NJ Decides: Presidential Election 2012
• GOP Campaign

Gingrich fired back that Romney misled voters by running an ad accusing the former House speaker of once referring to Spanish as "the language of the ghetto." Gingrich claimed he was referring to a multitude of languages, not just Spanish.

Poll numbers showed that Gingrich and Romney would be the two front-runners in Florida, with Paul and Santorum basically conceding Florida after the debate to focus on other states. That sentiment showed in the fervor that Gingrich and Romney showed towards each other, as bickering and animosity seems to grow between the two front-running candidates on a daily basis.

It is understandable to battle hard for a coveted spot, such as the Republican nomination on the Presidential Election ballot. However, it just has the feel of a mud-slinging race, growing in tenuous tone at every turn.

And usually, in between shots at each other, there are bombs dropped on every possible issue tied to President Barack Obama.

I can truly say I have no party affiliations. Call me an idealist, but I want to vote for somebody that can inspire, that plays the least amount of political games, and seems like he has a pulse of what the issues plaguing this nation are. Most of all, the negativity grows old very quickly.

Whether President Barack Obama has his own questions to answer in the final year of his presidency, it was refreshing to hear him at least address the "high temperature" that Washington politics currently has. He introduced ways to remedy that temperature, including trying to combat lobbyists. You always have to take the State of the Union Address with a grain of salt, since everything sounds so wonderful during the hour-long speech. Implementing the ideas is a whole other animal.

President Obama has now really began to hit the campaign trail to deliver his message, while the GOP'ers duke it out.

I am really undecided about which way I will vote in the upcoming elections because there are still so many questions about Obama, and what he can deliver on. But at the same time, nobody in this field of Republican candidates has distinguished themselves.

It is a very tough balancing act to showcase your ideas and keep positivity in the midst of a grueling day-in day-out campaign grind, while debating 19 times already.

And as I watched and watched, it became clear that mud-slinging between Gingrich and Romney was not about to end anytime soon, even over topics like building colonies on the moon.

A career businessman before he became a politician, Romney said: "If I had a business executive come to me and say I want to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I'd say, `You're fired."'

Gingrich tried to raise questions about Romney's wealth and his investments. "I don't know of any American president who's had a Swiss bank account," Gingrich said.

Romney replied that his investments were in a blind trust over which he had no control. "There's nothing wrong with that," declared Romney, who has estimated his wealth at as much as $250 million.

And it will continue and continue as the candidates navigate through upcoming primaries with the stakes higher and higher.

Candidates can make a jump or fall out of the race at the speed of light, with seemingly one slip-up doing them in.

It is time that everybody take a step back, take the temperature of the American people, and see that people are fed up with the constant division of government.

It has gotten to a point, where it seems like many politicians would rather see the country fail, in some instances, than to see their political rivals have a good idea that works.

When it gets to that point, well, that is just a scary proposition.

Courtesy Associated Press