By Harley Long Posted October 18, 2011
The 57th quadrennial Presidential Election for the United States will be held on November 6, 2012, and barring a shattering final year run, it will be expected to feature the current, President Barack Obama for the Democrats, against a yet-to-be-decided Republican candidate and the ever more mandatory independent candidate. Obama, who is eligible for a second and final term as President, has announced that he will seek the Democratic nomination in next year’s election.
The 2012 presidential election will coincide with the United States Senate Elections where 33 races will be occurring as well as the United States House of Representatives elections to elect the members for the 113th Congress. The election will also encompass eleven gubernatorial races as well as many state legislature races. For more general information on the 2012 candidates go to 2012.presidential-candidates.org.
The top Republican presidential candidates running are:
Ron Paul, who is a former medical doctor, officially announced his candidacy for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination on May 13, 2011. The 75-year old Texas congressman will once again center his campaign on the theme of liberty, human rights and financial market reforms.
Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas, announced that he was running for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2012 presidential election on August 13, 2011, with a confident declaration that he would come out on top. He has hard stances on several explosive issues, such as abortion, firearms, immigration, same-sex marriages and capital punishment, are bound to provoke a reaction outside of the conservative circles.
Mitt Romney is the Governor of Massachusetts chairman and in the Republican Governors Association. On June 2, 2011, Romney announced that he would seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Political observers and public opinion polls place him as a front-runner in the race. Romney ran for the Republican nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, ultimately he lost the nomination to John McCain.
The first woman to enter the 2012 race, Michele Bachmann, formally announced her presidential campaign on June 29, 2011. She served three terms as the Minnesota Congresswoman is also the current chair of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus. She firmly believes that the federal government should support local police and sheriffs who want to check the immigration status of suspects and “persons of interest.”
As the mood of the nation continues to waver in the face of rising unemployment figures, a runaway national debt and the almost humorous pretension by politicians from both sides of the divide, the importance of the presidential election has taken on an added significance. Do we give President Obama his second term to reap the projected returns of his policies, or should we wipe the slate clean and bring the Republicans back into power again in the hope that this time, things will be different?
