From Mother Jones, a sensible view of the choice we need to make for the next 4 years, while the GOP hopefully comes to its senses and is once again willing to govern responsibly.

What is the 2012 presidential election all about?

It's about something far more mundane than the imminent death of Medicare or the ACA and far less hopeful than the return to a sane foreign policy or a humane immigration reform effort. Rather, the election is about good governance and the guiding philosophy that makes Democrats better caretakers of the federal government than their Republican rivals.

Perhaps because Republicans are so hostile to all things government these days, they invariably drop the ball once they're actually tasked with the hard work of governing. The GOP is very good at one thing: obstruction. They play the countervailing force quite well. We saw this during the Bill Clinton presidency and we've seen it in an even more organized form during the past four years and the rise of 24-hour cable news and the internet.

But what Republicans are far less concerned with is efficient government. The real fault of the Bush Administration during Katrina was not merely a poor response, it was the appointment of people to FEMA who had no qualifications to adminster that program.

Meanwhile, in terms of simply taking government and making it more efficient rather than attempting to cut funding to PBS, President Obama has actually gone to great lengths to root out inefficiences within the federal machine, including working to consolidate federal agencies and cutting through red tape in his effort to help with victims of Hurricane Sandy—something Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie has praised the president for in recent days.

Certainly no government is perfect, and the Obama Administration has made its fair share of mistakes, but the glaring disasters of Iraq, Afghanistan and Katrina under the last president should serve as stark reminders of just how little the GOP is interested in the hard work of actually running the government. These events also illustrate how important it is to place competent people in positions of power within the government rather than merely idealogues or political allies.

I've thought for some time that the GOP might actually prefer to lose in 2012, and that this at least partly explains while the Republican primary was such a circus. Romney's candidacy is particularly ludicrous after the ascendancy of the Tea Party on the American right, further backing this theory.

As an oppositional force with a hamstrung Senate under permanent threat of filibuster, the GOP can accomplish many of its goals without bearing the burden of responsibility. This is why you hear Republicans blame the president over and over again for not fulfilling promises they worked extremely hard to block.

"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told National Journal's Major Garrett last year, reiterating McConnell's stated goal since taking back the Congress.

But one can't help but wonder if in the back of McConnell's mind he isn't thinking that four more years of the politics of obstruction might not be more effective than a Romney/Ryan win.

Finally, the presidential election is about the Supreme Court, perhaps an even more crucial factor than any other presidential appointment. And while a Romney win doesn't guarantee any more conservative justices on the court, it's certainly a risk.

In other words, this election isn't about many of the big issues of the day, it's about an idea: How do we want our government run, and by whom? Do we trust the same party that placed people like Paul Wolfowitz and Alberto Gonzales in high positions within the federal government? 

This election may not be about the death of Medicare—but it is very much about how we want that program, and the many other federal programs we rely upon, administered.