"Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or lacking clothes, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help?" ~Mt. 25: 44
In this 2012 U.S. presidential campaign, there has been a lot of talk about the middle class and the wealthy, and scant attention paid to the hungry and the poor. So I appreciate what Bread for the World has done in asking the two candidates to submit short video statements explaining what they would do "to provide help and opportunity for hungry and poor people in the United States and around the world." They also requested the candidates to "address this question publicly, consistently, and systematically in [their] campaigning." I doubt that will happen, and can't help but hear my inner cynic question the value of practiced campaign sound-bites, yet I'm grateful for the request anyway, Bread for the World. Here's to day-by-day persistence in prayer, action, and challenging the powers-that-be.
Obama's and Romney's responses, each around three and a half minutes long, are available here: http://www.bread.org/ol/2012/elections2012/
By coincidence, the day that Bread for the World made the candidates' responses available is the same day that Americans are first hearing about the 9/11/2012 attacks in Libya and Egypt that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and at least three others. I can't sign off here without mentioning how flabbergasted, and frankly, appalled I am that Romney is apparently attempting to use a tragic international incident to score points against Obama. To imply, even vaguely, that the Obama administration's efforts toward diplomacy just prior to the attack is indicative of "sympathy" with the attackers' motives is a self-serving and manipulative lie. (And now, a little later in the day, we are actually not so sure that those Libyan and Egyptian protests against the film in question were connected to the attacks on the embassies.) But perhaps some blessing might emerge from this sad turn of events if voters recognize that Romney has no diplomatic skills, is dangerously clueless, and should never become our president.
