If the answer is “Yes,” then we’re really in trouble. I don’t know how much more of this amusement we can stand. We are beyond the local elections and what a side shows that has been! We couldn’t even be sure who we would be voting for with re-districting and candidates moving, or at least appearing to move, into a neighborhood where chances of election would be more favorable. With few exceptions, most of the money was spent on vilifying the opponents. Virtually all the ads depicted the opposition as the devil incarnate and the candidate as savior of civilization. Unfortunately, elections for those who handle our money got little interest; the treasurers and commissioners of revenue actually do work. Finding out their qualifications for working with millions of taxpayer dollars is not easy, but they certainly were adept at mud-slinging. One would hope members of the General Assembly will move beyond the name-calling turf battles and figure out how to meet the ever-growing needs of the state. Breath-holding on that count will be a risky business if past sessions are any indicator.
To make matters worse, we are just getting tuned up for the real fun. Despite one’s political inclinations there is one obvious fact emerging from both sides of the presidential race: It’s going to get a lot worse. The Democrats are having a field day watching the Republicans edge closer to self-destruction as the Tea Party tries to wring one more drop from its already over-used bag. P.T. Barnum may have invented the three ring circus but even he could not have imagined the octagonal frenzy which “The Hermanator” and his fellow performers are presenting. Let’s hope that Barnum’s dictum of, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” turns out not to be true for the electorate.
We have the media to thank for all our overexposure. I have lost count of how many “debates” we have endured. The only thing that would add more color might be the candidacy of Homer Simpson. I fully expect, before it’s over (in only one more year) we will have set a record for shenanigans. Who among us does not have issues that you would not want exposed? Rest assured, if you run for office, they will be discovered. Yes, some of us stuffed the ballot box in an elementary school election for class president. Yes, some of us copied homework that wasn’t ours. Yes, some of us have been married more than once and the reasons it didn’t work will become public domain.
How to determine whether something that happened decades ago is fair game for current politics is difficult. Joe Biden, in an early run for President, was accused of plagiarism in graduate school. Ted Kennedy was expelled from Harvard for cheating and tried to cover up a drunken dalliance with Mary Jo Kopechne that ended in her death. One need do no more than mention the name of Bill Clinton, yet he achieved much in spite of his moral turpitude. Both Biden and Kennedy rose to great heights in later years.
We have a right to know what type of men and women are worthy of our trust and unless due diligence is done by the media we will never find out. I suppose it’s up to us to sift through the chaff and find, if there is any, the wheat. The constant robo-calls don’t aid in that winnowing, but they surely are annoying.
I’m convinced that the good outweighs the bad in almost every candidate. Former US Senator John Edwards certainly seems to be an exception to that. As the late Mike Royko said of a Governor of Illinois, “He’s the world’s tallest midget.” That tiny shoe might fit a number of our politicians.
Two quotations about politics come to mind. Winston Churchill said them both. “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing . . . after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” And, said he, “Democracy is the worst possible form of government . . . except for all the rest.”
Let’s hope that we will do the right thing and not have to exhaust all the possibilities before we find it. Our democracy is worth it.
