How gullible can the public be relative to the upcoming U.S. presidential election?

Do voters try, or want, to be informed? Do they really care who sits in the White House? Does the performance of the sitting president make any difference? For those who do care, where do they get their information and how do they judge the merits of the two candidates? What correlation do they make between the performance of the individual in the Oval Office and the economic health and safety of their country? What role do federal subsidies and handouts play in determining how citizens vote?

It is difficult to understand how the current race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney can be a tight contest. Granted, an incumbent always has — or at least should have — an advantage. On the other hand, if the record of an incumbent is poor or bad, how is it that he is able to post high popularity and approval scores? The logical answer would be that his opponent is ill-prepared, has a poor record, does not have the experience to serve in the most powerful elected position in the world, is a poor campaigner or would be an embarrassment for the office and the country.

Obama has an extremely poor record in office. He has failed to measure up to the grand-sounding pledges he made in his 2008 presidential campaign. His pledge for “transparency” in his administration has proven to be a fantasy or farce. Unemployment has been above 8 percent for an almost-record time and the national debt has soared. He has played the class warfare game to try to divide the country rather than making good on his pledge to bring the country and its citizens together. Our standing among world nations has slipped, and our national defense is being tested.

This is just a partial list of his failures, but apparently a blind and deaf public or a public that really doesn’t care seems to be giving Obama passing grades.

While Obama has never had to meet a payroll, his opponent has an outstanding hands-on record in government and private business. He has served as a governor, headed the successful Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and, in one of his executive positions, created thousands of jobs.

The three primary weaknesses attributed to Romney seem to be that he is rich and doesn’t understand, appreciate or recognize the needs and concerns of the common man, that he hasn’t provided his federal income tax records beyond the last two years and that, while he was working for Bain Capital, some companies Bain represented cut their workforces or sent jobs overseas.

Never mind that President Kennedy and his family were extremely wealthy, that Democratic senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry is extremely wealthy and that Franklin Roosevelt was extremely wealthy. This didn’t disqualify them from seeking the presidency.

Likewise, a recent news story reported that out of 535 members of the U.S. House and Senate, only 17 made their federal tax returns public. Neither former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi nor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released their tax records. Apparently, it is OK for them to keep their respective tax records secret but wrong for Romney not to make his tax records public for the past 10 or 15 years. He released his tax returns for 2010 and 2011, but that’s not good enough for Pelosi and Reid.

Some years ago, one of the nation’s best known and most respected public opinion polling companies was hired to help elect a high-profile individual to one of this country’s top political offices. The firm was successful, but because it was successful, leaders of the company decided they would no longer take political candidates as clients.

Their reasoning was, “We found out it was just as easy to get people to buy a certain brand of bread or cereal as it was to get them to vote for candidate A or B. We didn’t like this and don’t think it is good for the country.”

Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent this year to try to convince the public that one candidate is better than the other — or, in the case of Obama, to create issues designed to deflect attention from his own failed record and create diversionary issues to keep the public from realizing the seriousness of the nation’s weak employment and economic condition.

The fact is, Obama’s campaign is based on falsehood. Just recently, he made it clear what he thinks about free enterprise and entrepreneurship. He told the nation that private businesses or individuals did not achieve their success on their own through their efforts and hard work. He said, “If you have been successful, you didn’t do this on your own.” What a put-down.

Unfortunately, the major media of this country seem to be in bed with Obama. If George W. Bush had failed the way Obama has failed or said what he has said about the free enterprise system or called for higher taxes in a recession, etc., the media would have crucified him.

The major media have double standards for how they present Obama and Romney and how they treated Bush 43.

Again, how gullible can the public be relative to what qualifies an individual to be president, and how can three years of failed pledges and promises and a sick economy be overlooked?