By James G. Smith

To proclaim the presidential primaries a horse race does an injustice to all the equine species on earth.

Have you ever witnessed such a spectacle from adults? You keep hoping and praying someone will come forward to lead the country.

After the past seven years of debt, division, moral decline and loss of respect around the world, the American people deserve a leader, not another divider, and certainly not another apologizer and spender.

Where are the John F. Kennedy’s, “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

Or the Ronald Reagan’s, “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”

From the looks of the candidate field on the Democratic and Republican side, there is a deficit of civility, trustworthiness and leadership qualities presenting themselves for the highest office in the land.

We need someone with a plan to dig us out of this fiscal mess politicians have created.

Someone like John F. Kennedy who said, “We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

We need to start electing smarter, not necessarily more educated since that is part of the problem, people.

Taking a look at the Democrats still running, there is nothing there to consider. You have a confessed socialist and a wannabe seeing which one can promise the most free stuff.

Bernie makes no bones about where he wants to take the country while Hillary just wants to be the first woman president.

She is still under FBI investigation for mishandling or clumsily handling classified information on her private email server. Does that sound like someone you would want handling the nuclear football?

Lets face it, this country did not become the strongest nation on earth following the socialist doctrine. We are a free enterprise capitalist country and it has served us well.

Looking at the Republican side, what can you say about this trio of top contenders? Unfortunately, there is very little here either.

Leading the pack is this name-calling real estate mogul with weird hair and lots of his own money. Also, there is a junior senator from Texas who was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada to a Cuban father and American mother. He is accused by the other two contenders of being reckless with the truth, and incapable of getting along with anyone. And last but not least, there is a freshman senator from Florida who is the son of Cuban immigrants. He has missed voting on roll call votes more than other senators according to GovTrack.US especially this past year.

Oh woe with me, gloom and despair, what is a body to do? One thing for sure, my vote will not be for socialism in any form.