Monday, November 3, 2008

INFECTION (I mean ... election)

So here's what I'm thinking ...

Decision '08.

With just hours to go until the election, things are getting crazy. Neither candidate is pulling their punches. I've voted in every election since I was old enough and Tuesday will be no exception, but I'm reacting to this one in a much different way.

It may sound silly, but the last couple of months (if not longer) feel like a cartoon. No one is really saying anything. Behind the talking points are pertinent issues and good questions, but no one's paying attention. We're too busy making flair to spend time educating ourselves on the issues. I wouldn't even mind the grandstanding and the showmanship as long as we eventually settled down and got down to it.

Instead, we'll vote for whoever seems like a "nice guy." We'll support the one who's a "good speaker." Who cares what their actual policy decisions might look like. Nice guys and good speakers do not make a president. Jimmy Carter was probably one of the nicest guys to ever be president and one of our nation's worst presidents (I think history & historians are already bearing that out).

Even experience is hard to measure. One of the most expeirenced presidents of the 20th century had to be Richard Nixon. He'd been hanging around DC for decades before he took office; certainly had the experience, but how'd that work out?

More than any other election in recent memory, this election has lampooned and satirized. Funny? Yes. But some of it hits a little too close to home (what's the voter turnout expected to be, anyway? 30%? 40% That's just pathetic).

Taking anything I've said here and trying to figure out who I'm voting for is an exercise in missing the point. The real point is:

The candidates ought to be ashamed of themselves -

We should be ashamed of ourselves -

We've turned one of humanity's best ideas (democracy) into a 3-ring circus. And the only way to straighten the thing out is to buy a ticket and sit under the bigtop. And hope there's nothing sticky under the seat.

Cotton candy anyone?

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