<h1 class="cnnBlogContentTitle"><a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/18/my-take-hard-truths-matter-im-mormon-and-im-voting-for-obama/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link:My Take: Hard truths matter; I’m Mormon, and I’m voting for Obama">My Take: Hard truths matter; I’m Mormon, and I’m voting for Obama</a></h1>
<p class="cnn_first"><img class="alignright" style="margin-left:10px;margin-right:10px;" alt="" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/121017090352-joanna-brooks-headshot-left-tease.jpg"><em><strong>Editor's Note: </strong>Joanna Brooks is a senior correspondent for <a href="http://ReligionDispatches.org" target="_blank">ReligionDispatches.org</a> and author of "<a href="http://joannabrooks.org/" target="_blank">The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of an American Faith."</a></em></p>
<p>By <strong>Joanna Brooks</strong>, Special to CNN</p>
<p><strong>(CNN)–</strong>There are two moments and two moments only that made my soul sit upright during Tuesday night’s presidential debate:</p>
<p>President Obama, speaking about the loss of manufacturing jobs to
low-wage economies like China: “There are some jobs that are not coming
back.”</p>
<p>Obama, speaking about four lives lost in the attack on the <a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/12/ambassadors-killing-shines-light-on-muslim-sensitivities-around-prophet-mohammed/" target="_blank">U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya</a>: “I am the one who has to meet those coffins when they come home.”</p>
<p>Morbid? Not at all. I’m just a believer in the gospel of hard truths.</p>
<p><span id="more-35082"></span>And as I am the mother of two school-age
children, a teacher at an underfunded public university and a
progressive Mormon, hard truths about the challenges our nation faces
are all that makes sense to me.</p>
<p><a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/">CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories</a></p>
<p>As a mother, I am acutely aware that right now, our nation invests a
smaller and smaller share of its resources in our children, the
generation that will assume the debts my generation and our parents’
generation have incurred.</p>
<p>As an educator, I have witnessed firsthand how failure to generate
responsible levels of public revenue has significantly compromised
generations’ worth of investment in our public schools and universities.</p>
<p>And as a Mormon, I grew up with a healthy sense of respect for
worst-case scenarios. I was raised, after all, with a religious aversion
to debt and a year’s supply of canned wheat, beans and powdered milk in
the garage, as instructed by LDS Church leaders. The Mormon food
storage tradition isn’t about end-times-paranoia: It’s a lesson passed
down from our pioneer ancestors, who knew the importance of being
prepared for difficult seasons so you can do right by your family and
community.</p>
<p><a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/05/crossing-the-plains-and-kicking-up-dirt-a-new-mormon-pioneer/">Profile of Brooks: Crossing the plains and kicking up dirt, a new Mormon pioneer</a></p>
<p>This nation is in a difficult season, and I listened carefully
Tuesday night for a proper sense of respect for worst-case scenarios.
What I heard instead were the usual rhetorical swerves.</p>
<p>Mitt Romney offered personal anecdotes about “binders full of women”
that have nothing to do with economic security for American families. He
promised allegedly revenue-neutral $5 trillion tax cuts but refused to
provide solid details on how he’d balance the books. And he made
throwaway references to all people being the “children of the same God”
without substantial reflection on how that should translate in terms of
budget and policy.</p>
<p>What I really wanted from the debate was more of the hard truths that Obama seemed to be on the verge of saying:</p>
<p>“This recession is fundamentally different than other recessions, and there are no short-term fixes.”</p>
<p>“Our old strategies for managing Middle Eastern conflict through
military intervention or propped-up dictators don’t work. And there is
no easy way forward.”</p>
<p>“The only thing the $3 trillion Iraq war produced for the United
States was a mountain of debt and a legion of disabled Americans.”</p>
<p>“We need to have a serious discussion about Social Security.”</p>
<p>“Debts don’t get paid down without adjustments in revenues.”</p>
<p>These are the kind of hard truths that speak to the same part of me
that took notice when Obama at his inauguration quoted the Scripture:
“It is time to put away childish things” (1 Corinthians 13: 11).</p>
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<p>And given the challenges we face in bringing down deficits while
investing sensibly in the nation’s future, here are some other
Scriptures I’d like to hear:</p>
<p>“Turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of
the children to their fathers, lest I come to smite the earth with a
curse” (Malachi 4: 6).</p>
<p>“Set your house in order, for you shall die” (2 Kings 20: 1)</p>
<p>Morbid? Not at all. But I do feel a sense of responsibility for
keeping an eye on the worst-case scenarios. And a few months’ worth of
rice and beans in the garage, like Mormon leaders teach me. And an ear
out for the gospel of hard truths.</p>
<p>I have seen Obama work steadily, patiently through a difficult
season. I have seen him face some hard truths and accept that there are
no easy fixes. And I will vote to give him a second term.</p>
<em>The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Joanna Brooks.</em><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br>
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