Dear editor, The Times,

In just a few months, we Americans will go to the polls and elect the next president of our country.

The decision we make will determine the direction our nation will go for several years.

Let us ignore the candidate’s party, gender, race or age. Let’s forget the campaign oratory, since each candidate shifts his sails to take advantage of the shifting winds.

What really matters is which direction each of the candidates will take us.

One candidate’s agenda is to take us further down the path of socialism; with the big government deciding our individual needs for every thing from the education of our children ,to our retirement and to our healthcare. Here we need to listen to President Thomas Jefferson when he wrote, “A government big enough to give you every thing you want is big enough to take every thing you have”

The other candidate would provide us with leadership which relies on the two great principles that made our country great; maximum individual self-reliance and minimum interference of the government in our private lives.

If the Socialist candidate wins, there’s going to be a lot of unhappy people because he will not be able to deliver what each of his supporters expects.

Drew T. Johnson

Demopolis