Elections Should be About Issues, Not Insults
The midterm elections are now less than a month away, and I am the least excited I have ever been. I won’t say this election is the most important in our history, but I will note that our country is at a crucial crossroads. We are at a pivotal point as a society, and leadership, across all spectrums and party lines, is faltering.
The other day I received a call to participate in a political survey for the Georgia senate race. I jumped at the chance. While the crux of the call focused on Georgia, the pollster did ask numerous questions on my support and opinion of national leaders and policy initiative from both political parties. About halfway through the conversation, the pollster said “wow, no one is doing too well in your book.” The comment was comical, true and tragic.
There are important issues plaguing our nation. Yet, all that comes out of Washington and the media is a lot of loud noise.
I do not really listen to political ads, because I tend to do my own research and form my own opinion. However, the other day my husband commented that it would be hard to know where the GA Senate candidates stood on the issues from their respective ads, because all the ads do are hurl insults back and forth. Since then, I have been actively listening, but have yet to hear or see anything that lays out true policy agenda. With numerous Congressional seats up for grabs across the nation, I would venture to say this is not a Georgia only problem.
At this point, I am less concerned about party affiliation and more concerned about patriotism. The truth is, I am sick of politicians playing politics; it’s time for statesmen to return to the statehouse. The difference between the two, as I see it, is ambition. A politician is after power; a statesman seeks to be responsible for the issues that concern his/her district, state or nation. But we cannot hold the politicians solely responsible for the state of our nation. After all, we go to the ballot box year after year and elect the same or similar type of people. How can we expect change from Washington, if we ourselves do not change?
Politics is a funny thing, and most people do not pay attention until something personal causes them to get actively involved. Government seems huge, far removed, unchangeable, and at time unapproachable. Nevertheless, I fail to believe that was the intention of founding fathers. We have lost focus, and somewhere along the line of history, elections became a media circus full of sound bites, not solutions. Ads full of distractions, rather than delivered content. Neither party is living up to their founding principles, nor are we as citizens living up to our civic duty.
More than anything, I fear that the rift between parties, politics and policy is leaving the majority of Americans apathetic and uninterested in participating in the political process.
Image courtesy of Ozean Consulting
