Dear Mr. Romney,

I'm a homemaker from western Idaho.  I know you aren't thinking too much about Idaho right now.  The fact that you're Republican means that Idaho would vote for you even if your campaign promise was to do something crazy like annex Canada.  We're in the bag.  And whichever way I vote it won't make one tiny bit of difference.  But I am going to vote.  Not really sure why, when it won't affect anything.  I guess I feel it is a duty to vote because I can, because generations of people have died so that I can.  And whomever wins the election, I need to vote for the best person for the job so that I can live with myself while I try to live with the consequences I've been dealt by the voters in all the battleground states....you know, the ones that matter.

I am voting for you.

Here are some reasons that are NOT reasons I am voting for you:

You are Mormon
You are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  That's cool, so am I.  But I wouldn't vote for you because of that.  Most people I know are LDS, and I know people who are varying levels of good, bad, well-intentioned but still bad, competent, incompetent, hard-working, lazy, etc.  Your religion says nothing to me about how well you would do as President.  In fact, part of me really wishes you were not a Latter-Day Saint.  If you are elected, every mistake you make (and you will make plenty, as every president does) will be fuel on the fire of those who like to disparage our religion.  Being President means being hated by someone from one corner or another for every action you take.  Every blunder or perceived mistake--even actions that are necessary but unpopular--will have conservatives and liberals alike screaming, "Look!  See what those crazy Mormons believe?  They are evil!  They are idiots!  They are a cult!"  I kind of like where we are right now.  The media is mostly fair to us.  But if you are elected I could see that changing over the next four years.

You are Republican
I agree with lots of things that Republicans believe.  I also agree with lots of things Democrats believe.  And there are things about both parties I dislike.  I never vote for a party.  I vote for people.

You look like a President
You've got just the right look, like Bill Pullman as President in the movie Independence Day.  But I didn't even vote for people on their looks when I was in junior high.

Most of my friends and family are voting for you
I don't agree with my friends and family on every issue.  I certainly wouldn't hesitate to vote differently than everyone if I felt it was right.

Here are some reasons that I am voting for you:

Our economy needs you
At Bain Capital, in the 2002 Winter Olympics, and as governor of Massachusetts you showed you were financially savvy and not afraid to make tough choices.  Did you work miracles?  No.  Things didn't magically become perfect and I don't expect that to happen with our national economy.  But I know you will do what needs to be done to get us heading back on track, even if it makes you unpopular.  (It will.)  Decades from now, though, analysts and historians will say, "He did what had to be done."

You are a good man
I've never met you.  All I have to go on is what you say and what others say about you.  But as I have sorted through the mountain of opinions and stories on either side, I have come to the conclusion that you are a good man.  You care about people.  An ad recently ran, featuring your garbageman saying that you don't care about people like him.  I guess he thinks that because....the wind blew over your trash cans?  Did he know that during your run for governor you volunteered at many labor-intensive jobs, including spending a day as a garbageman?  You then said that you seemed invisible, like no one thought you were important.  And you reaffirmed how important those people are.  But more than words, your actions speak about the compassion you have for others.

You are very wealthy; many people automatically hate the wealthy. But I have seen the selfless ways you use your money: to help a family buy a house that you could have made more money on as an investment, to anonymously buy milk for veterans in a VA hospital for two years, to search for a business associate's endangered runaway daughter by flying all of your employees to New York where she was last seen and putting them to work on the search, by donating millions of dollars to charity...the list goes on and on. You are obviously a very good steward of your money. 

Promises are important to you.  When you became governor of Massachusetts you had someone write down all your campaign promises and got to work trying to fulfill them.  You didn't succeed.  Part of that was the fault of the Democrat-run legislature that would not work with you and part of it was your fault.  You are not perfect.  I wish you had fulfilled all of them.  But thank you for trying.  Perhaps the most important promise you have kept is the promise you made to your wife when you married her.  You have stood by her through age and illness.  I hope you will stand by America in her hour of distress as well.

You're better than the other guy
I admit--if there was a better candidate out there, I would vote for him or her.  Like any hiring manager, I want the very best person for the job.  After reviewing the weak record of the current "employee" and comparing it with your resume, I have determined it is time for a change.  I hope that the rest of America agrees with me.  Best of luck, Mr. Romney.

Sincerely,

Sandi