By Leesville Mayor Rick Allen

The political climate seems to be, tell as many lies as you can to confuse the voters and hope they don’t figure out the truth before election time.

You have also heard the saying, “You are what you eat” — meaning whatever you put in is what you get out. I heard someone say recently, “To not watch the news is to be uninformed but to watch the news is to be misinformed.”

Well, I would like to say that I’m neither but reality is you are one or the other or both. It’s not your fault and there’s really nothing you can do about it other than before you weigh in on a subject make sure you are not repeating what you heard without verifying that it’s true.

Nowadays elections are so expensive that unless you are the Democratic or Republican nominee you will get blown out of the water because you can’t raise enough money as a conservative independent to compete in any election. This is no mistake, that’s how they eliminate competition and I get it but does the average voter understand this?

I’m going to say probably not and even if the independent party got organized enough to back a candidate and fund their campaign, how long would it be before that party became controlled by a few politicians? The people would once again be looking for just a regular candidate who works for and earns what he or she has and will stand for what’s right and moral.

So, when I ask “where are you?” I’m really looking for a candidate that I can trust with the future of my grandbabies. Gov. Edwards raised and spent $73 million on his campaign, so you can see how much it cost to be competitive in that race. I would love to see a great united effort sweep across this state and elect a governor the majority of us could relate to. Just a thought.