In light of midterms season, I have been somewhat secluded from the political world. Now that I am back in the game, can someone please remind me when and how this election made the drastic switch to social issues, as though the economy is no longer the most pressing topic?

The way I see it, President Obama cannot run on his economic record, so he is exploiting conservatives’ positions on social issues. In lieu of talking about the lack of growth and sluggish recovery during his administration, the Obama campaign concentrates on Romney’s desire to defund Planned Parenthood, end the privacy right to get an abortion, make sure contraception is not included in future healthcare legislation and ban gay marriage.

But to be quite honest, the campaign is talking about Romney as if he were Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the president of Argentina. The first thing Romney will do if he is elected will be to draft an executive order so that he can rip the carpet out from under Planned Parenthood. He will then break the constitutionally ordained notion of separation of powers to overturn Supreme Court decisions. Then, before we can even turn our heads, he will reinstate “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” If Romney is elected, he will do all he can to wage a war on America’s most vulnerable members: gays, women and minorities. Oh joy, mass hysteria.

I may have hit my head too hard when I fell during my run the other day, so correct me if I am wrong here, but does it not take an Act of Congress to defund organizations, overturn previously passed legislation and illegalize gay marriage? Simply put, these are tedious processes that require most fundamental workings of our government in order to be executed. These issues will not be the focus of Romney’s administration. Rather, if Romney were to be elected, he would focus on exactly what Obama is avoiding having to discuss: the economy.

Don’t get me wrong, I support easy and healthy access to abortions and birth control for women, solidifying the right for gays to marry and other social issues. However, this election is about more than just these issues; this election is about ensuring that we, as students, have a booming economy to enter when we graduate and need to pay off loans. It’s about ensuring we put people back to work, decrease national debt and make changes in our system that will that will make this nation great again.

These stale campaign strategies are utilized due to Democrats’ insecurities concerning the re-electability of Barack Obama. Romney has waged a successful campaign, virtually closing the gender gap — a recently released Associated Press poll says that Obama and Romney are tied among women at 47 percent. Romney’s campaign strategies are working, and it got the Obama team to shake in their boots. In response, Obama campaign paints this image of the authoritative Republican Party that will turn back the time dial on civil and individual liberties, when, in fact, the Republican Party and its moderate and independent supporters want to reform our social security and health care systems and repair this sluggish economy. I do not know if they can accomplish this, but I am willing to see them try.

With all of this talk that Romney has no plan, what is the Democratic Party’s planned trajectory for the next for years? The Obama campaign just released a new glossy pamphlet concerning the plan for the next four years. For a campaign that focuses on how Romney’s numbers do not add up, it seems that the pamphlet — The New Economic Patriotism: A Plan For Jobs & Middle Class Security — shares that same alleged discrepancy. It makes mention of closing and eliminating unidentified loopholes and tax cuts, hiring more teachers and spending beyond the deficit to create what Bloomberg estimates would be13,000 more unsustainable jobs.

If I were a staunch Democrat and read the claims made in that pamphlet, I’d say it belonged to Romney.

Daniel Pierro is a sophomore in the College.