Divided and Focused
In less than a month, all of us registered voters in the US will head to the polls to vote in the mid-term general election. And if you haven’t already noticed, things have heated up to a frenzied level of stupid in a bid to either see the incumbent get re-elected or get pushed out by the underdog.
From my view, it appears that the best way to get elected is to dig up enough shit on the person you are running against and hope that enough of it sticks in the minds of the voters on Election Day to vote for the person slinging the shit. I call this creating a division. Why? Because you are not voting for the person who will properly represent you in government. You are voting for the person who told you that the other person has done too many bad things to want in office.
What happened to telling the people that you want to vote for you what you will do once you are elected? Why do you have to tear someone else down in attack ads and have them be your campaign platform? Seriously, I want to know what you will do to help reduce needless costs. I want to know what you will do to improve the streets and my safety. There has to be some talk about what you plan to do to ensure all people are treated equally under the law. I don’t give a fuck who you are running against, who they slept with or who they touched feet with in a bathroom stall.
Ok, that last part isn’t all true. I do read those stories and have to question that person’s morals and how they can be so hypocritical in their stances and how that differs what they do in their personal lives. I laugh at some of the gaffes that are publicly spoken that any reasonable person would question at saying during election season. And then there are the rebuttals at having to recant something you actually did years ago that you need to tell people you aren’t doing anymore. All of these do offer some entertainment and I admit that I have a chuckle or two when they are made public.
But in all honesty, I really do want my elected officials focused on doing their job. If they are going to be a mayor, I want them focused on what they plan to do as the mayor during their campaign. I don’t want to hear what the other person they are running against won’t do as mayor. Let’s stay positive and focused on your platform. If the other guy did something so bad, let their records, actions and statements bury them on election day and keep them out of office.
If every election campaign could be run like this, maybe we wouldn’t have the mudslinging contests be the main focus and we can wipe away the division that separates everyone and have those that take office or remain in office do what they promised in the days leading up to people filling the voting booths.
The only problem with this is that there is no chance in hell that these types of campaign tactics will never see a major change for many years. Why? Because it seems the general voting public wants to know more about the other person and what kind of bad and crazy shit they’ve done. They really don’t seem to care what the person they do vote for will do once they are elected. They care more about who campaigned for them, what they believe in personally and what religion they belong to. Oh, and a promise for lower taxes and less spending comes in dead last.
Seriously, is it too much to ask for a candidate that will be doing some type of balanced budget that they have some sort of experience doing that BEFORE they get elected? And what about this promise to lower taxes and reduce spending. Surely that would also apply to the large amount of money that gets funneled to them during their campaign. Why waste millions of dollars running for an office when one of their main focuses after getting elected will be to stop wasting money? To me, that doesn’t make sense. You want to get my vote? Figure out how to reduce the amount of money you spend trying to get elected and you won’t have to worry about returning the favors to the people you got money from. That’s a candidate I can get behind.
Again, this type of change isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Sure, there are candidates out there that are doing what I want, but they aren’t getting elected. Mostly due to that they don’t pander to the general public’s whims about who they pray to every night.
All I want is change in how people campaign. Focus your entire campaign on what you will do. Teach the mindless minions they need to care what you will do once elected. And then just maybe… maybe… we’ll see some real change we can all get behind – without being a divided mess of negative mindsets.
Ok, enough ranting here. What say you, my readers?
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I hate the ads mote than usual this time. So many of them playing over and over. If an ad has the phrase “…and I approved this message” I guarantee I hate it.
I want elections funded by tax dollars, allowing for no corporate or personal donations. Cut the amount of money spent on campaigns. To anyone who hates the idea of using taxes to pay for the elections, I say they already do as a pass through. Companies and individuals donate money to campaigns in exchange for favorable legislation. That legislation may help them to make more profit or bring them business through contracts or cut their taxes. All of those things cost us as either taxpayers and/or consumers. The companies take their profits (made off of us) and put it back into the electoral system as donations. See – we just paid for the elections one way or another. We can do it directly with laws governing how the system works or indirectly which is what we have now.
But you change the system so that taxes clearly pay for it and eliminate lobbyist money, foreign money, etc. and now you might actually see candidates doing what their constituents voted them into office to do. No more laws written by industry lobbyists, no more spending more of their time fundraising than working for us.
It’s not perfect, but it would take us a long way toward better.
kevin – The ads are so annoying and maddening, I turn them off so quick each time.
lisahgolden – Great comment. That is exactly what I would like to see. And have the laws limit what can be spent and deducted. I don’t have a problem if a candidate with wealth using their own money, but have it not be tax deductible so they would limit their own spending.
I hate campaign/election time immensely. I hate the constant shit flinging. I hate the conflicting messages. As far as I’m concerned, the only good politician is one who completely abstains from any negative campaigning and I’ve *never* seen that happen.
Oh and anybody that robocalls me does *not* get my vote.
I agree with you!
It’s like, tabloid elections anymore. How ’bout you just STFU and tell us what you’re going to do?
So simple, but a lot of things are, and yet – everyone can’t get it.
How the hell do these assholes even get ENDORSED?
I have to STFU myself – I’m about to go off on a tangent…
It’s funny because if you think about politicians as children in school, almost none of what they do would be ok. Children are taught not to talk badly about each other, not to put others down, but to focus on the good. Why don’t adults need to follow these rules? If a kid went to school and told everyone what he wasn’t going to do instead of what he was, he would probably end up in trouble. I sometimes think my son’s idea of voting in a child would be better than most of the choices out there. At least most children know when they have done something wrong and feel bad about it.
I already wrote about this on my blog (though not as well-focused as you!), so I’ll spare a retread here… but suffice to say I agree. The political system is currently built so that people are divided and nothing gets done. And both sides of the political spectrum are equally disgusting, so there’s really nowhere to turn so long as we’re locked into a 2-party system. It sucks, but that’s America for you!
Yes, lord, yes.
So bloody tired of the ads. Can’t wait for the elections to be over and done with.
kapgar – I agree. And there’s no too many of those good politicians left. Robocalls from any candidate are a big NO-NO in my book. At least the phone banks of humans that call me is personable.
sybil law – tabloid elections… that defines it all too well.
tori – You make a very valid point about how children are taught, yet when it comes to running for election, all those teaching go out the window. Maybe if these politicians were really concerned about the children (instead of just the lip service some of them give), they could run civil and focused campaigns.
dave2 – As I mentioned over on your post, we must have been on the same page and idea with our posts. I didn’t see it until after you left your comment here. I agree with you that our current political system is fucked up beyond belief. I just hope that it’s not beyond repair.
finn – We need a change.
karl – The ads need to go, or at least change.