Mudslinging

I rarely discuss religion or politics here. I feel somewhat strongly about one subject, while the other is filed in the back of my awareness along with sports information. Politics in America tends to be a popularity contest, and choosing candidates very often involves picking the lesser of two evils. There's never a person I agree with 100%, so it comes down to finding the one with the most non-objectionable stances. Some years, I'm sorry to say, I'll have a bout of laziness and just flip all the switches in one row. So my opinion doesn't have the weight of someone like The Southern Conservative, for example.

The thing I hate the most about this time of year is the commercials. It doesn't matter if you favor the left or the right; both sides employ the same tactics. Instead of listing the pros of one candidate, most advertisements paint a sinister portrait of the cons of the opposition, often in an ominous voice, then tack on a cheerier “paid for by” message with their guy's name at the end. It's politics at its most juvenile, high school mentality, and it's probably more effective than any news report or magazine article. Who has time to do research and check facts?

These ads have become spoofs of themselves. The recurring theme I've been seeing, though we aren't electing a new president this year, is to paint any candidate who supported any aspect of the current president's policies as evil by association. I don't know if anyone has noticed this, but people really don't seem to like our current president. Apparently, in addition to attacking innocent terrorists and using his weather dominator to weed out undesirables with hurricanes, he eats kittens and sacrifices children to the devil. This isn't what I'm saying, just to clarify before the secret service knocks down my door. But to listen to some of these commercials, especially with the sinister voice over, the devil is running this country and demons are running for other positions. It's absurd.

Maybe it's naive of me to expect adults to act like adults. Can you imagine a world where politicians boasted what they (sincerely) stood for? Imagine if they used the tactics I learned in high school for debating. We were taught never to issue personal attacks, and to even concede some of an opponent's points before pointing out why we felt differently. Saying, “You're just wrong and you smell kind of musty!” is not effective debating. The better tactic is to say, “You're right about this and this, but here's where I disagree with you and these are some facts to support my position.” Does that ever happen? Sometimes, and more often when the candidate himself is speaking. The committee behind the campaign however seem to have missed some of these debate classes.

I'm not going to talk about where I stand or who I support, although I'm sure that's easy to infer. I'm not going to tell anyone who to vote for, but I hope people's decisions are based on favoring one candidate over opposing another one. Imagine for a moment I was running for President of the Blogosphere. Just for fun, even though we'd probably be in the same party, let's say my opponent is TheWriteJerry, and my people run a series of ads on YouTube issuing the following statements, read by someone like Tobin Bell:

”The Write Jerry would have you believe that God is your friend, but God doesn't want you to have any fun. Don't you like to have fun? If you vote for Jerry, he will come over and rip up all of your ‘sinful' issues of She-Hulk. Once, The Write Jerry shaved his head because some lousy wiseguy told him to. It wasn't pretty. Do you want a candidate who isn't pretty? Jerry is soft on the issues, and softer around the midsection, moreso than our guy. Do you want some plump guy in office? A grown man who takes BATHS?? Did I mention that The Write Jerry is also a scary old vampire with an albino midget hugging his neck? Think of the children. Won't someone please think of the children?

The Write Jerry is The Wrong Candidate. Vote MCF.

Paid for by Friends of Mike Whorenelli. Some or all facts may or may not have been embellished. Act now, and receive an MCF bobble head figurine for free. Keep it in your office; we swear there are no concealed electronic listening devices.”

So who would you vote for? Sadly, the hypothetical isn't far from real examples out there...