Candidates who forget what they have rehearsed to say or presenting contradictory, illogical arguments, audience members cheering the idea of people being executed or dying due to lack of proper health care; one cannot help but be troubled by the state of one of the two major political parties of our nation. What becomes clear after a while is that we are not watching people who are seriously running for president, but running for future careers as TV commentators, book sellers, reality TV stars and public speakers. Which is probably a good thing since they seem to be more qualified for those careers rather than being president. This nation needs an opposition to offer viable alternatives to the policies of the incumbent party. Instead, with each passing Republican debate the possibility of this idea seems more and more remote.

During last week’s debates, two of the candidates, Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum, stated that they would use water boarding to get information if they were president. A technique that is not only contrary to American ideals and our laws, but has been proven ineffective by many experts and would put our troops at risk. Candidate Herman Cain spoke about the danger of China seeking nuclear weapons, despite the fact that they’ve had nuclear weapons since the 1960’s. One of the major mistakes made was by Rick Perry when he failed to remember the name of one of the government agencies that he would cut as president. On top of his massive ‘oops’ moment, he jokingly corrected himself saying he would cut the EPA. That line received the support from the audience who cheered for the destruction of the agency founded by Republican president Richard Nixon which has saved the U.S. economy billions in health costs due to its maintaining of clear air and water standards.

Never before have we seen such extreme, anti-scientific, candidates at such a high national level. Many of the candidate’s public opinions reflect those of the Tea Party driving the Republican primary process. The electorate wants alternative policies to choose between. An intelligent opposition forces the incumbent party to respond and debate, with this crop of candidates our current president need only let them do all of the talking.