The Election

It's about two weeks until the election.  The first Presidential election I remember was Kennedy/Nixon - 1960.  I was 10 years old, and even I noticed how 'pretty' Jack and Jackie were.  However, historically, the 1960 election was all about the influence of television on an election just as the 1932 election was all about the influence of radio.

Kennedy campaign managers understood how you LOOKED on TV was going to be more important than what you SAID.  Nixon managers didn't get that.  Nixon, sweating with his five o'clock shadow and no TV make-up didn't look as good as Kennedy with his sunny smile, TV bronzed appearance, and great hair.  Alarm bells did not go off about form over substance.  Today, it's all about how you look.  One candidate has been derided for a bad toupee, and the other for gaining weight and looking dumpy.  It's all about being packaged with hair, make-up, teeth, and symbols as represented by clothing and accessories.  We need to be more sophisticated and stop falling for form over substance at every level of politics.

There have been many disturbing factors about this election.  The most serious is the obvious erosion of trust for the government.  I can cite statistics and facts and trends to prove this, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a mathematician to sense this.  We are playing with fire.  The line between government stability and a complete breakdown between citizens and government is very, very thin.  No ordinary person has ever been better off living in a country with an unstable government.

Democracy is not about agreement.  It's about disagreement.  However, disagreement does not mean disrespect.  In the United States there is the loyal opposition.  People who don't agree with your political viewpoint are not enemies of the state nor are they unpatriotic.  If you look back to the very founding of our country, the two houses of Congress are the first of many compromises between the political factions of the now revered Founding Fathers.

Political compromise means government happens.  We need more compromise between the two political factions in our country.  That means in practical terms, a Congressman or Senator who engages in compromise isn't financially targeted to be defeated in the next election by vindictive PACS.   Compromise in government means nobody gets everything they want, but everybody gets something.  The level of frustration with our Congress is so high because our perception is the people we are electing are not seriously working on our problems.

Another growing problem in the electronic age is we, the electorate, have to get much, much, much smarter about where we get our information.  The days of Walter Cronkite are gone.  As media has been economically consolidated, each major news outlet has a slant or bias dictated by ownership.  Some media is blue; some media is red.  Know who you are reading or listening to, and what their bias is.  At least major media (and I include major newspapers across the country as well as the five major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS) still have to meet journalistic intregrity standards.  JoeBlow@blogger.com or PoliticalOpinionRus.org doesn't have to tell you facts.

It's time to recognize you should be selecting your news information not only from people you agree with but also from people you disagree with.  We oldsters remember a time when news wasn't reported if it wasn't a fact. Opinions were clearly labeled opinions. Now, our media, whether 'red' or 'blue' mixes fact and opinion as if they were exactly the same in order to persuade us of their viewpoint.  Facts don't have viewpoints.  Opinions do.

Every four years the hype is all about how are you casting your vote for President.  That portion of your vote is largely a symbolic vote.  The important votes are for County Commission, the School Board, the Water District and those little unpaid public service offices which most voters won't even be bothered with. These 'little people' are the ones who really impact your daily quality of life.

The peoplewho are giving their time and energy to work for all of us in small, usually unpaid jobs are the true heroes of a democracy.  Start at the bottom of your sample ballot and work 'up'.  Figure out who you are voting for.  For example, in Arizona there's a Central Arizona Water District Board elected every six years.  It's a no-brainer that in the desert water is crucial.  It took me a long time to figure out which five water district board members I was going to vote for, but these five votes are much more important than my Presidential vote.  A by-product of trying to decide my votes is I now understand the problems facing Phoenix about water.

Finally, the most imporant thing you can do is VOTE.   Democracies don't work if the citizens don't vote.  Apathy means the most extreme viewpoints are overly represented. Sometimes I want to shake people by the ears when I hear, 'Oh, my vote doesn't really count.'  In some places, those small offices you vote for  in your community are decided by fewer than 100 votes.  Everybody's vote counts.  The only people who don't count are the ones who don't vote.  So, get out and VOTE, AND WHEN THIS ELECTION IS ALL SAID AND DONE IT'S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER:  WE ARE ALL AMERICANS.