Mitt Romney in Council Bluffs (Photo credit: IowaPolitics.com)

The past few weeks you have been getting a lot of criticism for a weak campaign.  In fact I have been one of the critics.  It seems strangely contradictory, because I like and admire your focus on the real issues instead of personal attacks.  Your generosity, and your humility,  your personal practice of leading by example rather than florid speeches, prove you to be a man of sound moral character.  You are just the kind of man this country needs at this critical moment in our history. Even so, though I admire your integrity, at the same time I really, really wish you’d pop Obama right in the chops (verbally of course).

Week after week I have watched the Obama campaign build half-truths and statements taken out of context into outright character assassinations.  I’ve listened to Obama resort to blatant falsehoods about your record and his.  Fabricating an agenda for you, while covering up his own.  Week after week I have watched you take a pacifist stance, absorbing the blows and soldiering on.  Never once calling him out or exposing his bald-faced lies.

I’ve watched your interviews, and listened to stories about how you have helped people. And after listening to the main stream media tell me how out of touch you were with the American people, I was surprised. No, amazed.  I saw a man who is not afraid to roll up his sleeves and get dirty.  A man who prizes his family more than his wealth, who taught his kids personal responsibility leading by example.  A man who looks like he would be as much at home pushing a lawn mower as he would be at a board meeting.  Your wife even buys your shirts at Costco.  You and your family seem so down to earth.  Like the kind of people who would enjoy a backyard barbecue in my humble home, even though you could afford expensive steaks at an upscale restaurant.   In your world view and lifestyle I feel like I have far more in common with you than I do with the people down at the welfare office, though I’m much closer to them financially.  And yet you let the media paint you as cold, aloof and elitist.

I can’t even begin to understand how hard it must be to have your most embarrassing moments and most intimate details laid bare for the world to see, by an unscrupulous opponent who knows how to manipulate the truth and the media to concoct his own version of reality.  Your campaign may lack the taxpayer provided transportation of Air Force One, and the free endorsements provided nightly by the evening news anchors as they gush and fawn over the sitting President, but you do have truth on your side.  A truth that you should be welding like a hammer to victory.

Every day as I hear the poll numbers and the reports showing an ever-increasing lead for Obama, I become even more frustrated.  I know you have the personal integrity, and the business sense to turn this country around, but I’m not the one you have to convince.  I am astounded that so many Americans cannot see that sitting in the Oval Office is a man who is anathema to everything that our Founding Fathers intended for this country.  A man whose not so hidden agenda is to bring this country to its knees and diminish its standing in the world.  Obama’s plan of bailouts, handouts, and wealth redistribution will kill our economy and place us firmly on the path to austerity.  Meanwhile, I lie awake at night fearful of the nation we will become if he gets a chance at four more years.  The nation my children will inherit.

You see Mr. Romney, for me and those like me, this is not just another Presidential election.  It is a battle for our way of life.  It is a historical turning point where this country returns to the “land of opportunity” that our Founding Fathers intended. Or, it is when our country turns down the path of a Soviet style republic.  A place where an ever decreasing congregation of people with integrity struggle and toil for an ever-increasing horde of people dependent on the government for their survival.   Our anxiety is real.  The consequences are real. It is a battle Mr. Romney, that we cannot afford for you to lose.