As The Campaign Heats Up

[howeird]

Actually, the campaign is still plodding along, but the supporters on both sides are heating up. Minds will not be changed anymore, because each side is totally focused on defending both the good and bad around their chosen candidates, and attacking both the good and bad of the other side.

It annoys the hell out of me, because I see good and bad on both sides, but it's pointless to show the bad to the supporters, or the good to the opponents. They are entrenched, and for every argument there is an equal or greater rant. Political inertia can neither be created nor destroyed, but it can be converted into words - at roughly the same proportions as Einstein's equation: Words = (Facts x Emotions) squared.

Comments

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

But I bet it feels good to be one of the lonely few who sees everything clearly. I know how that goes.

Despite appearances, I don't expect either side to be all good or all bad. At times like this, one goes with the least worst (or in this case, the side whose record in government doesn't terrify me quite so much) and tries to be optimistic about it.

So yes, you can show Obama supporters that he's a thumping crook from the baddest part of town, but what's the alternative for them? What can you do by doing that except cause them to lose all hope and look around for the nearest railroad track to have a nap on? All their hopes for the next four years are pinned on the possibility that he's just slightly less of a thumping crook than Bush has been, that he might actually mean it when he talks about ending the war and trying to provide for people who need jobs and healthcare and so on. You can certainly take that hope away from them, and leave them with the choice that is no choice, but it seems a little mean for the sake of enduring what is now a few short weeks of annoyance.

And you can show them that John McCain is not quite the Antichrist and Sarah Palin is not quite his demon sex bunny, but the whole point of these elections is that everyone gets to pick one or the other, to make their own decision as to which team would be better at running America. You may feel that people have been stampeded or bamboozled into making these decisions by the liberal (or conservative) media, and you might prefer it if everyone took time to consider the issues in every possible light before deciding that they're as bad as each other and tossing the proverbial coin, but I think that would take a major change in (for one thing) the educational system.

I sympathise with your annoyance. Political campaigns bug the hell out of me too, and yours go on far too long. But it's nearly over.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

I may be cynical in accepting the idea that all politicians lie, and lie about substantive matters. It turns into calculus then.

How much is the politician lying?

Is the politician lying about things that are important to me?

To that end, I review Annenberg Political Fact Check (sponsored by a prominent Republican family's non-partisan non-profit foundation) and The St. Petersburg Times PolitFact (The St. Petersburg Times has a surprisingly good investigative reporting group; they broke the Robert Irvine Dinner Impossible fraudulent CV scandal--fluff, I know, but good work) services on a regular basis.

Candidates from both parties lie. Big surprise.

Republican candidates, though, lie more, keep repeating lies that have been debunked, lie about the character of their opponents and their own characters. If the Republican lies aren't coming in at least 3-for-1 compared to Democratic lies I'm surprised.