The great American political circus is currently touring the USA, and quite a show it is. I hope all Montanans will take the opportunity to view at least a few episodes. It is very entertaining, quite educational and will afford you some insight into the character, morals and beliefs of the performers, one of whom will be our next president, the most important position on the face of planet Earth.

As citizens of this great country, our duty is to learn all we can about the candidates and where they stand on the major issues facing our nation. Then when the time comes to vote, we can vote intelligently, instead of emotionally, for the person we believe will do the best job for our nation.

For myself, here’s a bit of what I have observed thus far:

Under the Democratic (Socialist) big top, there are two contestants remaining. First there’s Bernie Sanders, an elderly hippie and professional politician who is a self-professed socialist who hates Wall Street with a passion and, I gather, most rich people.

His basic platform is that government should care for all citizens. That includes health care for everyone; education through college level for everyone; and much better care of the poor, the elderly and our veterans. Bernie believes that his grandiose plans will be paid for with more taxes on the rich, and especially those who make billions in the stock market.

Bernie seems like a nice person, and wishing for a little utopia here on earth is commendable, but unfortunately it’s only a pipe dream that cannot realistically be accomplished. His free stuff, especially free college education, is playing well with many of our young voters who are facing large debt to obtain a degree, but they unfortunately don’t yet have the knowledge and life experience to realize that “Nothing is ever FREE” and that socialist forms of government are only temporary and must eventually collapse under their own weight. Additionally, Bernie has as much as admitted that foreign policy is not his strong suit, so I have to rule him out as a viable candidate.

Then there’s Hillary, who should probably be wearing an orange jump suit with large black numbers printed on it, but instead she’s a candidate for president (only in the USA!). Hillary has been trying her hand at being a politician for over 20 years and has managed to make a mess of most everything she has been involved in, especially her stint as secretary of state. Her actions, or lack thereof, at least indirectly resulted in the deaths at our consulate in Benghazi and the loss of the oil fields of Libya to ISIS. Moreover, her frivolity in using a personal server to conduct sensitive State Department business demonstrates a serious error in judgment that could be very costly to our government before all is said and done. Not very presidential.

Hillary embraces the liberal lunacy of “political correctness” as well as continued growth of government with ever-increasing debt, open borders, higher taxes, and strict gun control. I could list much more, but I’m sure you have the picture: She is basically an Obama clone.

Therefore, if you are happy with the state of the Union for the past seven years during which millions of illegal aliens have poured across our borders, our national debt has almost tripled, millions of unborn children have been murdered with our government’s blessing and your tax dollars, a vicious war on Christianity has been furiously pursued, our military has been decimated, our veterans have been treated like second-class citizens, marriage has been turned into a joke, our Second Amendment rights have been under constant attack, the government now mandates your health care at a much higher cost, we have been embarrassed internationally by our apologetic president, we have abandoned Israel and our longtime allies no longer respect or trust our leadership, then “go for it.”

You made two horrible mistakes with Obama, might as well make it three for three, and kiss the remainder of our freedom goodbye. For me, and I would hope all other Christians, I will cast my vote elsewhere!

The Republican show started with a gaggle of candidates, many of whom were well-qualified, but most fell by the wayside early simply because they were identified as party politicians and the voters have had a belly full of career politicians who get nothing done because they bow to political correctness and special interests and don’t have the guts to stand up to and stop the damage that the current loose cannon in the White House continues to inflict on this nation.

There are now three candidates left, with only two having a realistic chance of making the finale. The third, Gov. John Kasich, is simply hanging on hoping for a chance at bartering the nomination at the convention in Cleveland, an almost impossible long shot. Kasich is a career politician with vast experience at both the state and federal levels and by all reports is currently doing a great job as governor of Ohio. His problems are twofold: He is part of the system which most conservatives consider broken and is a moderate conservative who some voters feel might be willing to go too far with compromise to keep peace in Congress.

Currently in second place is Sen. Ted Cruz from Texas, a first-term senator who came from blue-collar roots to become the solicitor general of Texas and is best known for successfully arguing several important cases before the U.S. Supreme Court prior to his successful run for the U.S. Senate in 2012. Cruz is a staunch defender of the Constitution and the liberties it guarantees, and he is also a devout Christian and refuses to compromise his beliefs for the sake of political correctness or personal career advancement or security. Therefore he is considered a rebel and is not favored by the Washington party elite who would prefer that Cruz just go away, but he is in this race to the bitter end.

His platform is to fix a lot that has gone terribly wrong in this nation such as too much government, an out-of-control budget, open borders, an ancient immigration system, a bad health-insurance system, a badly weakened military with much outdated equipment, the increasing threat of ISIS, government funding of the murder of unborn children, the lack of support for Israel, a stagnant economy, many illegal executive orders that should be repealed, etc. Ted Cruz is a patriot who puts the welfare of this nation as his top priority and is probably the best candidate for the presidency who is still running.

Last of the GOP candidates, but certainly not least, is Donald Trump, a narcissistic billionaire with the ego of an African lion, who is self-funding his campaign. The Donald has very little to qualify him for the job as president except his business experience, in which he started with an inherited fortune that he grew immensely, then lost most of and then rebuilt it into an even larger fortune of billions.

In spite of his total lack of political experience, Donald has been the front runner all through the early caucuses and primaries, much to the chagrin of the Washington establishment and the very liberal media. There are several reasons for this: He is not now nor has he ever been a party to the broken political system, he is not beholden to anyone, and he is definitely not politically correct.

He tells it like it is, often without engaging his brain before opening his mouth, thus wounding himself on a regular basis, but the wounds seem to heal quickly. He talks a lot but he also listens, so he knows what the major fears and frustrations of the people are. These fears and frustrations include: An out-of-control president; out-of-control government spending; millions of illegal aliens streaming across our borders and overloading our welfare and educational systems and in his view bringing much crime with them; industry leaving our shores like rats from a sinking ship due to oppressive regulations, oppressive taxes and unreasonable unions; no apparent urgency in attacking the ISIS threat; a do-nothing Congress; the massive abortion problem; our broken top-down educational system; a stagnant economic system in which many have less take-home pay now than they did at the beginning of the Obama era; etc.

Trump promises to vigorously attack these problems, and that my friends is why he is leading. The $64,000 question is, “How effective would he be if elected?” His saving grace might be that in his circle of high-profile business tycoons and corporate lawyers, he probably can call on some very bright people for advice and assistance, and who knows, if elected he might become a great president. He certainly couldn’t possibly be worse than what we have had for the past two terms nor what the prospect would be with either of the current Democratic candidates.

One last note: No matter which conservative candidate gets the nomination, please vote. It is our duty as citizens, and if you don’t vote you are in fact voting for the opposing candidate.

Larry Metzger is a resident of Bigfork.