My parents were not especially political. In fact I don't recall it ever being a topic of conversation in my house. I never paid much attention to elections and politics in general. Then in college I lived with two political science majors. Elections, bills, laws, Senate Majority Leader, were regular topics of conversations (I was not included in these conversations, I just listened as I had no idea what they were actually talking about). They tried their darnedest to educate me, but not much sunk in. Well maybe not much sunk in, but it has made me more aware of the political world...doesn't mean I understand, just that I know its there and that it sounds like a big fat mess.
That leads me to the point of this post... the big fat mess. You can't turn any where right now without being inundated by ads for the upcoming election. At first they weren't so bad. Just introducing us to the candidates, giving us their take on important issues a few times during prime time tv. And then suddenly they were everywhere and they were getting nasty. The other day I was playing one of those stupid little addicting games on MSN and while my game was loading, an ad for the governor's seat played. Seriously? Is that necessary? I don't think the innundation would bother me so much if not for the content of the ads now. They have gotten mean and vicious. Why would I want to vote for either of you? You're telling me this guy didn't pay his taxes but wants everyone else to pay more but my other option is the guy who voted to give himself a raise but left the budget $13 million in the red.
Don't tell me why NOT to vote for the other guy! Tell me why I SHOULD vote for you! Isn't that why I should vote? So that you can make a change and make our world better? But how are you going to do that, how will I know you CAN do that, if all you're telling me is all the mistakes your opponent makes? And didn't your mother ever tell if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?!?
I recently read an article that stated that negative ads work and "when they stop working, we'll stop running them." Well you don't give us another option. Try us. Give us an election where at least one candidate only runs positive ads and see what happens. I bet they get votes soley on the basis that they didn't say anything negative about anyone else. What are we telling future generations? It doesn't matter what you can do, its how bad you can make your opponent look.
Can't we change this way of doing things?
No comments:
Post a Comment